Detection of bone marrow abnormalities in patients with Hodgkin's disease by T1 mapping of MR images of lumbar vertebral bone marrow.

Pixel by pixel T1 mapping of MR images has been used in conjunction with image analysis techniques to study the lumbar vertebral bone marrow of 20 patients with refractory or relapsed Hodgkin's disease prior to salvage chemotherapy, or high dose chemotherapy with autologous bone marrow rescue. Compared to 18 age matched controls, seven patients had significantly abnormal lumbar vertebral marrow T1 histograms with median, 5% and 95% centile T1 values that lay outside a three dimensional 95% probability region obtained for the normals. Six of these patients had increased areas of high T1 consistent with bone marrow involvement with lymphoma; although, only in two of them had Hodgkin's disease been detected by bilateral iliac crest bone marrow biopsy. Post-treatment studies were performed in four patients who had abnormal areas of high T1 in the lumbar vertebral bone marrow. All showed normalisation of the T1 histogram, with a reduction of T1 values to within the normal range as defined by the studies of age matched controls. T1 mapping of bone marrow offers potential for detecting bone marrow infiltrates in patients with lymphoma, and also for the assessment of treatment response.