Jerry S. Cheung1,2, Wing-Yan Au3,
Shau-Yin Ha4, Jens H. Jensen5, Dan Kim5,
Abby Y. Ding1,2, Iris Y. Zhou1,2, Hua Guo5,
Truman R. Brown6, Winnie C.W. Chu7, Darshana D.
Rasalkar7, Pek-Lan Khong8, Gary M. Brittenham9,
Ed X. Wu1,2
1Laboratory of Biomedical Imaging and
Signal Processing, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR,
China; 2Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The
University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR, China; 3Department
of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR, China; 4Department
of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam,
Hong Kong SAR, China; 5Department of Radiology, New York
University School of Medicine, New York, United States; 6Department
of Radiology, Columbia University, New York, United States; 7Department
of Diagnostic Radiology and Organ Imaging, The Chinese University of Hong
Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China; 8Department of Diagnostic Radiology,
The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR, China; 9Department
of Pediatrics, Columbia University, New York, United States
Accurate
MRI characterization of myocardial iron is needed to improve the diagnosis
and management of thalassaemia patients with transfusional iron overload.
This study aimed to demonstrate that a new transverse relaxation index, the
reduced R2 (RR2) that is estimated from non-monoexponential multi-echo CPMG
signal decay and sensitive to ferritin iron, could detect the myocardial iron
changes immediately following 1-week iron chelation suspension in
thalassaemia patients at 3T.