Assessment of MR‐based and quantitative susceptibility mapping for the quantification of liver iron concentration in a mouse model at 7T

摘要: PURPOSE To assess the feasibility of quantifying liver iron concentration (LIC) using R2* and quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) at a high field strength 7 Tesla (T). METHODS Five different concentrations Fe-dextran were injected into 12 mice to produce various degrees overload. After sacrificed, blood samples harvested. Ferritin enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry performed quantify serum ferritin LIC. Multiecho gradient echo MRI was conducted estimate magnetic each sample through complex nonlinear least squares fitting morphology enabled dipole inversion method, respectively. RESULTS Average estimates concentration, LIC, R2*, all show good linear correlations with concentration; however, standard deviations in increase concentration. Both measurements also LIC (R2  = 0.78 R2  = 0.91, respectively), susceptibility-to-LIC conversion factor 0.829 ppm/(mg/g wet) is derived. CONCLUSION The MR-based  R2* QSM 7T demonstrated. Susceptibility quantification, which an intrinsic property tissues benefits from being field-strength independent, more robust than quantification this ex vivo study. A presented that agrees relatively well previously published derived results obtained 1.5T 3T.