Taigang He He1, Gillian C. Smith1, Raad H. Mohiaddin1, David N. Firmin1, Dudley J. Pennell1
1Cardiovascular MR Unit, Royal Brompton Hospital and Imperial College, London, UK
This study aims at determining the intrinsic T2*/T2 relationship in thalassemia patients (N=50) and compare this relationship in the tissues of liver and heart. Multi-echo T2* and T2 images were separately acquired in the heart and consequently in the liver. It demonstrates that hepatic T2 correlated linearly with T2* in patients with iron overload, suggesting that both can be used for assessing iron overload. This relationship between T2* and T2 in the liver, however, appears different from that in the myocardium, suggesting the calibration results of T2*/T2 against biopsy in the liver may not be directly transferred to the heart.