Moon Hye-Jin, Chang Yongmin, Lee Yeong Seon, Song Huijin, Chang Hyuk Won, Ku Jeonghun, Allen Richard P, Earley Christopher J, Cho Yong Won
Department of Neurology, Dongsan Medical Center, Keimyung University School of Medicine, Daegu, Republic of Korea.
Department of Molecular Medicine, Kyungpook National University and Hospital, Daegu, Republic of Korea.
Med Devices (Auckl). 2015 Jul 30;8:341-50. doi: 10.2147/MDER.S83629. eCollection 2015.
Magnetic resonance imaging relaxometry studies differed on the relaxometry methods and their approaches to determining the regions of interest (ROIs) in restless legs syndrome (RLS) patients. These differences could account for the variable and inconsistent results found across these studies. The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between the different relaxometry methods and different ROI approaches using each of these methods on a single population of controls and RLS subjects.
A 3.0-T magnetic resonance imaging with the gradient-echo sampling of free induction decay and echo pulse sequence was used. The regional brain "iron concentrations" were determined using three relaxometry metrics (R2, R2*, and R2') through two different ROI methods. The substantia nigra (SN) was the primary ROI with red nucleus, caudate, putamen, and globus pallidus as the secondary ROIs.
Thirty-seven RLS patients and 40 controls were enrolled. The iron concentration as determined by R2 did not correlate with either of the other two methods, while R2* and R2' showed strong correlations, particularly for the substantia nigra and red nucleus. In the fixed-shape ROI method, the RLS group showed a lower iron index compared to the control group in the substantia nigra and several other regions. With the semi-automated ROI method, however, only the red nucleus showed a significant difference between the two groups.
Both the relaxometry and ROI determination methods significantly influenced the outcome of studies that used these methods to estimate regional brain iron concentrations.
在不宁腿综合征（RLS）患者中，磁共振成像弛豫测量研究在弛豫测量方法及其确定感兴趣区域（ROI）的方式上存在差异。这些差异可能解释了这些研究中发现的结果的多变性和不一致性。本研究的目的是在同一组对照人群和RLS受试者中，评估不同弛豫测量方法与使用这些方法的不同ROI方法之间的关系。
使用具有自由感应衰减梯度回波采样和回波脉冲序列的3.0-T磁共振成像。通过两种不同的ROI方法，使用三种弛豫测量指标（R2、R2*和R2'）确定区域脑“铁浓度”。黑质（SN）是主要的ROI，红核、尾状核、壳核和苍白球为次要ROI。
纳入37例RLS患者和40例对照。由R2确定的铁浓度与其他两种方法中的任何一种均无相关性，而R2*和R2'显示出很强的相关性，特别是对于黑质和红核。在固定形状ROI方法中，RLS组在黑质和其他几个区域的铁指数低于对照组。然而，在半自动ROI方法中，只有红核在两组之间显示出显著差异。
弛豫测量和ROI确定方法均显著影响使用这些方法估计区域脑铁浓度的研究结果。
