MAGNETIC-RESONANCE-IMAGING OF TRANSFUSIONAL HEPATIC IRON OVERLOAD

The transfusional iron overload in 11 adult patients suffering from ha ematological malignancy was studied in 14 consecutive 1.0 Tesla magnet ic resonance imaging (MRI) studies. Routine T-1- and T-2-weighted spin echo sequences and a fat suppressed sequence (STIR) were used. The ra tio from a region of interest of the liver parenchyma and from a manga nese chloride reference phantom was measured. There was a definite dif ference between the signal ratio from the haematological patient group and the control group (p = 0.0001). The patients showed a diminished signal ratio in all pulse sequences used. There was a statistically si gnificant inverse linear correlation between the number of transfused red cell units and the signal ratio in the T-1-weighted (p = 0.03) and the T-2-weighted (p, = 0.03) images. A definite decrease of the effec t is found after 20-30 red cell unit transfusions in T-2-weighted and STIR images.