title: A robust method for assessment of iron overload in liver by magnetic resonance imaging.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: CNR Institute of Clinical Physiology, Pisa, 56124 Italy. positano@ieee.org
authors.forename: Vincenzo
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Positano
authors.forename: Benedetta
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Salani
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Scattini
authors.forename: Maria F
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Santarelli
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ramazzotti
authors.forename: Alessia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pepe
authors.forename: Massimo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lombardi
authors.forename: Luigi
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Landini
mesh_terms: 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
chemical_list: D007501:Iron