Come eseguire lo studio cardiaco T2 star pesata di risonanza magnetica per gli accumuli di ferro nella talassemia

Abstract

The aim of the study is to show how to execute a cardiac T2* MRI assessment correctly in patients who suffer from iron overload in vital organs, particularly in the heart. The main cause of iron overload is Thalassemia, the disease which is widely spread in the Southern and Middle part of Italy, as well as the Mediterranean coast. Researchers have demonstrated that patients who suffer from thalassemia might have an excessive and toxic iron overload which could lead to heart failure and death. Thanks to the T2*single breath-hold multi-echoes sequence, using a dedicated software, the patients’ myocardial iron deposition can be classified into three groups: T2* MRI < 10 ms ( high risk group) T2* MRI =10-20 ms ( medium-risk group) T2* MRI > 20 ms (low-risk group) This measure called “saturation time”(expressed in 1/1000 sec.), also allows physicians to customize medical treatment for every patient, same as a good tailor does to make a new dress fits well on every single client. However, to obtain precise and reliable results, radiographers first and radiologists afterwards, must respect every single technical parameter in MR techniques