1. Bone Marrow Fat Distribution in Patients With β-Thalassemia: A Study Using Chemical Shift-Based Water-Fat MRI
- Author
-
Raja Rizal Azman, Umi Nabilah Ismail, Kwan Hoong Ng, C. A. Azlan, Nicholas Jackson, Mohammad Nazri Md Shah, Kuan Jin Lee, Nur Farhayu Omar, Shasha Khairullah, Chai Hong Yeong, and Norlisah Ramli
- Subjects
Adult ,Ineffective erythropoiesis ,Adolescent ,Thalassemia ,medicine.disease_cause ,030218 nuclear medicine & medical imaging ,Young Adult ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Disease severity ,Bone Marrow ,Left femur ,Humans ,Medicine ,Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and imaging ,In patient ,Prospective Studies ,business.industry ,beta-Thalassemia ,Healthy subjects ,Water ,Fat distribution ,medicine.disease ,Magnetic Resonance Imaging ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Adipose Tissue ,Liver ,030220 oncology & carcinogenesis ,Bone marrow ,business ,Nuclear medicine - Abstract
Rationale and Objectives Molecular studies have shown the changes in bone marrow fat in relation to altered hematopoiesis. This study aims to investigate the changes in the bone marrow fat in patients affected by β-thalassemia by using chemical shift-encoded (CSE)–MRI. Materials and Methods Twenty-three subjects, comprising of six healthy (17-31 years old) and 17 β-thalassemia subjects (19-39 years old), were scanned using a multiecho fast low angle shot sequence (0.94 × 0.94 × 3.00 mm3) and a stimulated echo acquisition mode sequence using 3T MRI. Bone marrow proton density fat fraction (PDFF) was quantified in the left femur of each subject. Regression and Bland-Altman analysis were used to analyze agreement between CSE-MRI and 1H-MRS. PDFF distribution was analyzed using Hartigan's dip test and the computed Wasserstein distances. Jonckheere-Terpstra trend analysis was performed to evaluate the effect of disease severity on PDFF distribution. Results An excellent agreement was found between PDFF measured using CSE-MRI with 1H-MRS (R2 = 0.91; bias =-1.41%). Healthy subjects showed left-skewed or bimodal PDFF distribution while β-thalassemia subjects showed bimodal, normal or right-skewed distribution. Jonckheere-Terpstra test shows that PDFF distribution was increasingly different from the norm as disease severity increased (TJT = 166.0, z = 3.806, p Conclusion CSE-MRI is a promising tool to demonstrate spatial changes and variability in marrow fat distribution, resulting from ineffective erythropoiesis.
- Published
- 2022