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Purpose: To correlate hepatic 1 T2 values obtained by means of a T2-Quantitative MRI (T2-QMRI) technique with three widely applied methods for the evaluation of hemosiderosis, i.e., (a) liver iron concentration (LFeC) (b) serum ferritin (SF), and (c) histologic grading of siderosis. The impact of coexisting hepatitis was also considered. T2-QMRI measurements were compared with signal intensity (SI) ratio measurements on conventional SE images. Materials and methods: Liver T2 relaxation times were calculated in 40 thalassemic patients, on an 0.5 T magnetic resonance imaging system using a multiple spin-echo sequence with parameters: TR = 2500 ms, TE = 12 ms in 20 symmetrically repeatable echoes. Results: (a) 1 T2 values were well correlated (r = 0.97) with liver iron concentration, which ranged from 2.32 to 18.0 mg/g dry weight (normal |
