title: Experimental detection of iron overload in liver through neutron stimulated emission spectroscopy.
abstract: Iron overload disorders have been the focus of several quantification studies involving non-invasive imaging modalities. Neutron spectroscopic techniques have demonstrated great potential in detecting iron concentrations within biological tissue. We are developing a neutron spectroscopic technique called neutron stimulated emission computed tomography (NSECT), which has the potential to diagnose iron overload in the liver at clinically acceptable patient dose levels through a non-invasive scan. The technique uses inelastic scatter interactions between atomic nuclei in the sample and incoming fast neutrons to non-invasively determine the concentration of elements in the sample. This paper discusses a non-tomographic application of NSECT investigating the feasibility of detecting elevated iron concentrations in the liver. A model of iron overload in the human body was created using bovine liver tissue housed inside a human torso phantom and was scanned with a 5 MeV pulsed beam using single-position spectroscopy. Spectra were reconstructed and analyzed with algorithms designed specifically for NSECT. Results from spectroscopic quantification indicate that NSECT can currently detect liver iron concentrations of 6 mg g(-1) or higher and has the potential to detect lower concentrations by optimizing the acquisition geometry to scan a larger volume of tissue. The experiment described in this paper has two important outcomes: (i) it demonstrates that NSECT has the potential to detect clinically relevant concentrations of iron in the human body through a non-invasive scan and (ii) it provides a comparative standard to guide the design of iron overload phantoms for future NSECT liver iron quantification studies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Duke Advanced Imaging Laboratories, Durham, NC 27705, USA. anuj.kapadia@duke.edu
authors.forename: A J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Kapadia
authors.forename: G D
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Tourassi
authors.forename: A C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Sharma
authors.forename: A S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Crowell
authors.forename: M R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Kiser
authors.forename: C R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Howell
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002417:Cattle; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D007501:Iron / Q000378:metabolism; D019190:Iron Overload / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000378:metabolism*; D008099:Liver / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology*; D009502:Neutrons; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D011829:Radiation Dosage; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014055:Tomography, Emission-Computed / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D007501:Iron