Clinical Study of MRI Assessment of Iron in the Myocardium, Liver, Pancreas and Pituitary Gland in Patients With High Transfusion Dependence on the Packed Red Blood Cells

All patients were investigated using a 3T MRI scanner (Philips Achieva) and 1,5 T MRI scanner (GE Signa) with 8-channel surface coil for body scanning. For myocardium, pancreas and pituitary gland iron overload quantification in children we have used special sequences for T2*-mapping based on fast gradient echo sequences - multi-phase fast gradient echo and ultrashort gradient echo (uTE) in axial and coronary plane. For breath-hold acquisition due to failure of communication and invariable behavior some children received anaesthetic support with mechanical ventilation. Miocardium, pancreas and pituitary gland T2* relaxometry maps were calculated automatically by commertial application ReportCARD Functool (GE Healthcare) and integrated Philips T2* maps.

The placement of region of interest (ROI) in target organ were performed by following criterion: for the myocardium - in the interventricular septum in short axis plane; for the pancreas - in corpus in axial plane; for the pituitary gland - in adenohypophysis; for all organs the area of large and small blood vessels, which can introduce distortions of the obtained results were excluded. Then for selected ROI T2* data acquisition in milisecond [ms] were performed and calculated automatically by approximating the attenuation curve with the highest likelihood method.