Liver iron assessment is useful in diagnosis and staging of several iron-related pathologies. Several works were published on the use of MRI as means for non-invasive liver iron concentration (LIC) measurement. Even thought the transverse relaxation rate showed to be effective in iron assessment of aqueous iron solution, it is still difficult to use MRI in order to get a reliable in-vivo LIC evaluation. Previously observed uniform T2 distribution in iron-overloaded rat livers makes difficult to establish which is the “real T2” that has to be correlated with the LIC. In our experimental model, iron overload was induced in thirty-one rats by feeding them a high iron-content diet. After MRI measurements (carried out a 4.7T) LICs were evaluated by submitting a relatively large part of each rat liver to atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS). T2 maps of the rat livers were then calculated and regions of interest (ROIs) were drawn within the maps in order to cover the entire lobe used for AAS. In this way it was possible to correlate the “mean” iron concentration of the liver sample with various statistical parameters evaluated in the ROIs. Results showed that when simple statistical parameters (such as mean and standard deviation) are combined together it is possible to get a better correlation (R=0.947) that would not be possible if they were considered separately. The possibility to extend this approach to human is discussed.

Liver iron assessment in rats by using NMR: a simple statistical analysis on T2-maps

FENZI, Alberto
2002-01-01

Abstract

Liver iron assessment is useful in diagnosis and staging of several iron-related pathologies. Several works were published on the use of MRI as means for non-invasive liver iron concentration (LIC) measurement. Even thought the transverse relaxation rate showed to be effective in iron assessment of aqueous iron solution, it is still difficult to use MRI in order to get a reliable in-vivo LIC evaluation. Previously observed uniform T2 distribution in iron-overloaded rat livers makes difficult to establish which is the “real T2” that has to be correlated with the LIC. In our experimental model, iron overload was induced in thirty-one rats by feeding them a high iron-content diet. After MRI measurements (carried out a 4.7T) LICs were evaluated by submitting a relatively large part of each rat liver to atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS). T2 maps of the rat livers were then calculated and regions of interest (ROIs) were drawn within the maps in order to cover the entire lobe used for AAS. In this way it was possible to correlate the “mean” iron concentration of the liver sample with various statistical parameters evaluated in the ROIs. Results showed that when simple statistical parameters (such as mean and standard deviation) are combined together it is possible to get a better correlation (R=0.947) that would not be possible if they were considered separately. The possibility to extend this approach to human is discussed.
2002
3800727145
liver iron concentration; NMR T2-maps
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11562/430848
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