Taigang He1, John-Paul Carpenter1, Guang-Zhong Yang2, Dudley J. Pennell1, David N. Firmin1
1Cardiovascular MR Unit, Royal Brompton Hospital and Imperial College, London, UK; 2Department of Computing, Imperial College London
This study is to compare myocardial T1, T2, and T2* measurements and their intrinsic relationship in thalassemia patients (N=48). Multi-echo T1, T2, and T2* images were acquired in the myocardium. The results demonstrate that both T1 and T2 correlate linearly with T2* in patients with iron overload, but not in patients with normal iron. The study also demonstrates a linear correlation between T1 and T2 in all the patients. This study suggests that T1, T2, and T2* can be used for assessing myocardial iron overload. For subjects with normal iron, T1 and T2 can potentially provide improved myocardial tissue characterization.