Untreated, iron overload causes hepatic fibrosis and cirrhosis, diabetes mellitus, hypogonadism, cardiomyopathy, dysrhythmias, and sudden death. In patients with liver iron overload, GRE based MRE techniques most likely fail due to very low signal from the liver. 2D Spin echo echo planar imaging (SE-EPI) based sequences have higher wave SNR compared with 2D GRE based MR elastography because of a higher number of wave cycles encoded per trigger (60 wave cycles per trigger vs three wave cycles per trigger in the typical 2D GRE acquisition sequence), which enables higher signal-intensity sampling of the phase waveform used to calculate the shear stiffness. In this study, our goal was to assess and demonstrate the applicability of a modified short TE, SE-EPI based MRE for staging liver fibrosis in select patients with liver iron overload conditions.
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