Journal
MAGNETIC RESONANCE IN MEDICINE
Volume 51, Issue 3, Pages 607-611Publisher
JOHN WILEY & SONS INC
DOI: 10.1002/mrm.10735
Keywords
iron overload; MRI; liver; hemochromatosis; thalassemia; T-2; T-1; relaxometry; ferritin; microspheres
Funding
- NCRR NIH HHS [M01 RR000043, M01 RR000043-460988] Funding Source: Medline
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Close monitoring of liver iron content is necessary to prevent iron overload in transfusion-dependent anemias. Liver biopsy remains the gold standard; however, MRI potentially offers a noninvasive alternative. Iron metabolism and storage is complicated and tissue/disease-specific. This report demonstrates that iron distribution may be more important than iron speciation with respect to MRI signal changes. Simple synthetic analogs of hepatic lysosomes were constructed from noncovalent attachment of horse-spleen ferritin to 0.4 mum diameter phospholipid liposomes suspended in agarose. Graded iron loading was achieved by varying ferritin burden per liposome as well as liposomal volume fraction. T-1 and T-2 relaxation times were measured on a 60 MHz NMR spectrometer and compared to simple ferritin-gel combinations. Liposomal-ferritin had 6-fold stronger T-2 relaxivity than unaggregated ferritin but identical T-1 relaxivity. Liposomal-ferritin T-2 relaxivity also more closely matched published results from hemosiderotic marmoset liver, suggesting a potential role as an iron-calibration phantom. (C) 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
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