title: Efficacy of hepatic T2* MRI values and serum ferritin concentration in predicting thalassemia major classification for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.
abstract: Liver biopsy has been performed for many decades for classifying the patients with TM. Meanwhile, using non-invasive methods such as T2* MRI technique has been recently much more considered to determine the hepatic iron overload. Ninety-three pediatric HSCT candidates with TM who underwent liver biopsy were included in this study. Hepatic T2* MRI values and serum ferritin concentrations were assessed to investigate and determine the useful method in detection of patients with TM class III whom received different conditioning regimens, in comparison with class I and II. Twenty (21.5%) patients were categorized as class III. Hepatic T2* MRI could detect TM class III patients with 60% sensitivity and 87.67% specificity (LR+: 4.867, accuracy: 81.72%), while predictive feature of ferritin values for distinguishing patients with TM class III was not statistically significant (p-value >0.01). Combination of T2*MRI with age (T2*-age) could detect TM class III with 85% sensitivity and 72.6% specificity (LR+: 3.1, accuracy: 75.27%).T2*-age may be considered as an alternative and non-invasive method to liver biopsy for differentiation and classification of patients with TM before transplantation.
authors.affiliation: Hematology-Oncology and Stem Cell Transplantation Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Amir Ali
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Hamidieh
authors.forename: Fatemeh
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Moeininia
authors.forename: Sirous
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tayebi
authors.forename: Ahmad Reza
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Shamshiri
authors.forename: Maryam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Behfar
authors.forename: Mahdi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jalili
authors.forename: Kamran
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Alimoghaddam
authors.forename: Ardeshir
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ghavamzadeh
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D019540:Area Under Curve; D001706:Biopsy; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D005293:Ferritins / Q000097:blood*; D018380:Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation; D006801:Humans; D019190:Iron Overload / Q000175:diagnosis; D008099:Liver / Q000473:pathology*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D017086:beta-Thalassemia / Q000097:blood* / Q000145:classification*
chemical_list: D005293:Ferritins
keywords: T2* MRI; hematopoietic stem cell transplantation; liver biopsy; thalassemia major