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A hybrid (iron–fat–water) phantom for liver iron overload quantification in the presence of contaminating fat using magnetic resonance imaging

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Abstract

Objective

Assessment of iron content in the liver is crucial for diagnosis/treatment of iron-overload diseases. Nonetheless, T2*-based methods become challenging when fat and iron are simultaneously present. This study proposes a phantom design concomitantly containing various concentrations of iron and fat suitable for devising accurate simultaneous T2* and fat quantification technique.

Materials and methods

A 46-vial iron–fat–water phantom with various iron concentrations covering clinically relevant T2* relaxation time values, from healthy to severely overloaded liver and wide fat percentages ranges from 0 to 100% was prepared. The phantom was constructed using insoluble iron (II, III) oxide powder containing microscale particles. T2*-weighted imaging using multi-gradient-echo (mGRE) sequence, and chemical shift imaging spin-echo (CSI-SE) Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) data were considered for the analysis. T2* relaxation times and fat fractions were extracted from the MR signals to explore the effects of fat and iron overload.

Results

Size distribution of iron oxide particles for Magnetite fits with a lognormal function with a mean size of about 1.17 µm. Comparison of FF color maps, estimated from bi- and mono-exponential model indicated that single-T2* fitting model resulted in lower NRMSD. Therefore, T2* values from the mono-exponential signal equation were used and expressed the relationship between relaxation time value across all iron (Fe) and fat concentration as \({\text{Fe}} = - 28.02 + \frac{302.84}{{T2^{*} }} - 0.045\,{\text{FF}}\), with R-squared = 0.89.

Discussion

The proposed phantom design with microsphere iron particles closely simulated the single-T2* behavior of fatty iron-overloaded liver in vivo.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Hamid Emadi for help in preparing the phantom, Anahita Fathi Kazerooni for her scientific editing and comments on the manuscript. Imaging for this work was performed at National Brain Mapping Laboratory (NBML).

Funding

This phantom study has been supported by Tehran University of Medical Sciences & Health Services Grants 27331 and 32965.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), Tehran, Iran

    Nazanin Mobini & Hamidreza Saligheh Rad

  2. Quantitative MR Imaging and Spectroscopy Group (QMISG), Research Center for Cellular and Molecular Imaging, Institute for Advanced Medical Technologies, Imam Khomeini Hospital Complex, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Keshavarz Blvd, 1419733141, Tehran, Iran

    Nazanin Mobini, Malakeh Malekzadeh & Hamidreza Saligheh Rad

  3. Medical Physics Department, School of Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences (IUMS), Tehran, Iran

    Malakeh Malekzadeh

  4. Department of Radiology, Shohada-e Tajrish Hospital, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences (SBMU), Tehran, Iran

    Hamidreza Haghighatkhah

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  1. Nazanin Mobini
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Contributions

NM was responsible for study conception and design, data collection, analysis and interpretation of data, and drafting the manuscript; MM helped with the interpretation of data and critical revision; HH designed the study conception and acquisition of data; HS was responsible for protocol/project development of the framework and critical revision.

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Correspondence to Hamidreza Saligheh Rad.

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Mobini, N., Malekzadeh, M., Haghighatkhah, H. et al. A hybrid (iron–fat–water) phantom for liver iron overload quantification in the presence of contaminating fat using magnetic resonance imaging. Magn Reson Mater Phy 33, 385–392 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10334-019-00795-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10334-019-00795-7

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