The first cancer patient in Europe to undergo the trial was treated at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge.
The technique could help to tailor treatments by spotting immediately which drugs are working well, and which are not.
The unnamed patient was injected with a breakdown product of glucose known as pyruvate.
This was labelled with a form of carbon called C-13, which makes the pyruvate 10,000 times more likely to be detected in an MRI scan.
The scan tracks the molecule as it moves around the body and enters cells, monitoring how quickly the cancer cells break down the pyruvate.
If it is broken down quickly, for example, it suggests the cancer cells are still active and therefore the latest drug administered has not been effective.
Professor Kevin Brindle, from Cancer Research UK, said: "We're very excited to be the first group outside North America, and the third group worldwide, to test this with patients and we hope that it will soon help improve treatment by putting to an end patients being given treatments that aren't working for them.
"Each person's cancer is different and this technique could help us tailor a patient's treatment more quickly than before."
Dr Ferdia Gallagher, from Cambridge University, said: "This new technique could potentially mean that doctors will find out much more quickly if a treatment is working for their patient instead of waiting to see if a tumour shrinks."
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