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Assessment of ferritin content in multiple sclerosis brains using temperature‐induced R* 2 changes
Author(s) -
Birkl Christoph,
Carassiti Daniele,
Hussain Fariha,
Langkammer Christian,
Enzinger Christian,
Fazekas Franz,
Schmierer Klaus,
Ropele Stefan
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
magnetic resonance in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.696
H-Index - 225
eISSN - 1522-2594
pISSN - 0740-3194
DOI - 10.1002/mrm.26780
Subject(s) - relaxometry , ferritin , white matter , multiple sclerosis , myelin , quantitative susceptibility mapping , nuclear magnetic resonance , magnetic resonance imaging , pathology , chemistry , hemosiderin , medicine , central nervous system , immunology , physics , radiology , spin echo
Purpose Current MRI techniques cannot reliably assess iron content in white matter due to the confounding diamagnetic effect of myelin. The purpose of this study was to validate with histology a novel iron mapping technique that uses the temperature dependency of the paramagnetic susceptibility in multiple sclerosis (MS) brains, where white matter has been reported to show significant variations in iron content. Methods We investigated post mortem brain tissue from three MS patients and one control subject. Temperature‐dependentR 2 *relaxometry was performed between 4°C and 37°C. The resulting temperature coefficient (TcR 2 * ) maps were compared with immunohistochemical stains for ferritin light chain. Results Good agreement betweenTcR 2 *maps and ferritin staining was found by way of visual comparison and quantitative analysis. The highest iron concentrations were detected at the edge of MS lesions and in the basal ganglia. For all regions, except the subcortical U‐fibers, there was a significant negative correlation between theTcR 2 *values and the ferritin count. Conclusion This study provides further evidence thatTcR 2 *may be a reliable measure of white matter iron content due to the elimination of myelin‐induced susceptibility changes and is well suited for further research into neurological diseases with distortions of the iron homeostasis. Magn Reson Med 79:1609–1615, 2018. © 2017 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.