A robust method for assessment of iron overload in liver by magnetic resonance imaging.
Assessment of iron overload in liver by T2* magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a widely used clinical procedure. In the common clinical practice, measurement is performed locally by manually drawing a small region of interest in liver. This procedure may be affected by a noticeable intra- and inter-observer variability. In this study, a new approach is proposed that performs a global semiautomatic measurement of T2* involving the whole liver extension. Parenchyma is automatically segmented by an adaptive fuzzy-clustering algorithm. The liver T2* global value is evaluated using a pixel-wise approach by introducing an appropriate signal decay model. The proposed method was tested on a synthetic software model and on MR images acquired from 30 thalassemia major patients. The methods was demonstrated to increase the measure precision in T2* assessment and to significantly reduce the intra- and inter-observer variability.
Positano
Vincenzo
V
CNR Institute of Clinical Physiology, Pisa, 56124 Italy. positano@ieee.org
Salani
Benedetta
B
Scattini
Barbara
B
Santarelli
Maria F
MF
Ramazzotti
Anna
A
Pepe
Alessia
A
Lombardi
Massimo
M
Landini
Luigi
L
D006801:Humans; D007501:Iron / Q000378:metabolism; D019190:Iron Overload / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008099:Liver / Q000378:metabolism*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D012984:Software; D013789:Thalassemia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000378:metabolism
D007501:Iron