Upper abdominal and cardiac mri protocol for the study of iron accumulation in the Thalassemic patients

Abstract

Thalassemia is a highly prevalent inherited disorder in the Mediterranean region. Italy has a significant number of individuals affected by this condition, which, in its most severe form, requires periodic blood transfusion sessions. This leads to pathological iron accumulation in organs, particularly the heart, liver, and pancreas. The purpose of this study is to describe the imaging acquisition procedures using specific MRI techniques for the quantification of iron in these sensitive organs. Using a dedicated T2* sequence it is possible to quantify the iron overload in heart, liver and pancreas. The value of T2* equal to 20msec is considered a threshold below which accumulation is not considered pathological. In post-processing, the images obtained with the T2* sequences are analyzed by a dedicated software.