Optimal region-of-interest MRI R2* measurements for the assessment of hepatic iron content in thalassaemia major.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the performance of region-of-interest (ROI)-based MRI R2* measurements by using the first-moment noise-corrected model (M(1)NCM) to correct the non-central Chi noise in magnitude images from phased arrays for hepatic iron content (HIC) assessment.


METHODS
R2* values were quantified using the M(1)NCM model. Three approaches were employed to determine the representative R2*: fitting of the ROI-averaged signal (average-then-fit, ATF); outputting the median and mean of R2*s from the pixel-wise fitting of decay signals within the ROI (denoted as PWFmed and PWFmea, respectively). The accuracy and precision of the three approaches were evaluated on synthesized data. The agreement among these approaches and their intra- and inter-observer reproducibility were assessed on 105 thalassaemia major patients.


RESULTS
Simulations showed that ATF consistently yielded the highest accuracy and precision at varying noise levels. By contrast, PWFmed and PWFmea slightly and significantly overestimated high R2* at poor signal-to-noise ratios, respectively. Patient study showed that ATF agreed well with PWFmed, whereas PWFmea produced high R2* measurements for patients with severe HIC. No significant difference was observed in the reproducibility of the three approaches.


CONCLUSIONS
PWFmea tends to overestimate high R2*, whereas ATF and PWFmed can produce more accurate R2* measurements for HIC assessment.
School of Biomedical Engineering, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
Meiyan
M
Feng
School of Biomedical Engineering, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
Xinyuan
X
Zhang
School of Biomedical Engineering, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
Huashuai
H
Gao
Department of Diagnostic Imaging Centre, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
Yikai
Y
Xu
Department of Diagnostic Imaging Centre, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
Binquan
B
Lin
Department of Pediatrics, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
Jianyun
J
Liao
School of Biomedical Engineering, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
Wufan
W
Chen
School of Biomedical Engineering, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China. Electronic address: foree@163.com.
Yanqiu
Y
Feng
D000328:Adult; D000465:Algorithms; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods; D007501:Iron / Q000378:metabolism*; D008099:Liver / Q000378:metabolism*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D059629:Signal-To-Noise Ratio; D017086:beta-Thalassemia / Q000378:metabolism*
D007501:Iron
Hepatic iron content; Magnetic resonance imaging; Noise-corrected model; R2* relaxometry; Region-of-interest