St Pierre Timothy G, Clark Paul R, Chua-Anusorn Wanida
School of Physics, M013, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia.
Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2005;1054:379-85. doi: 10.1196/annals.1345.046.
Measurement of liver iron concentration (LIC) is an important clinical procedure in the management of transfusional iron overload with iron chelation. LIC gives an indication of over- or underchelation. Although chemical assay of needle biopsy samples from the liver has been considered the "gold standard" of LIC measurement, needle biopsy sampling errors can be surprisingly large owing to the natural spatial variation of LIC throughout the liver and the small size of biopsy specimens. A magnetic resonance imaging technique has now been developed that enables safe noninvasive measurement and imaging of LIC with a known accuracy and precision. Measurements of LIC can be made over the range of LIC encountered in clinical practice. The technique is based on the measurement and imaging of proton transverse relaxation rates (R2) within the liver. The R2 imaging technique can be implemented on most clinical 1.5-T MRI instruments, making it readily available to the clinical community.
肝脏铁浓度（LIC）的测量是采用铁螯合剂治疗输血性铁过载管理中的一项重要临床操作。LIC可指示螯合过度或不足。尽管肝脏穿刺活检样本的化学分析一直被视为LIC测量的“金标准”，但由于LIC在整个肝脏中的自然空间变化以及活检样本尺寸较小，穿刺活检的采样误差可能会大得出奇。现已开发出一种磁共振成像技术，能够以已知的准确度和精密度对LIC进行安全的非侵入性测量和成像。LIC测量可在临床实践中遇到的LIC范围内进行。该技术基于肝脏内质子横向弛豫率（R2）的测量和成像。R2成像技术可在大多数临床1.5-T MRI仪器上实现，临床群体可轻易使用。
