The effect of measurement area size on the reliability of myocardial iron load measurement in cardiac magnetic resonance imaging examinations of thalassemia patients

• Published in: Turkish journal of medical sciences Vol. 51; no. 2; pp. 583 - 588
• Main Authors: Yeniçeri, İbrahim Önder, Azık, Fatih Mehmet, Dinç Elibol, Funda
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Turkey The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey 30-04-2021
• Subjects: beta-Thalassemia - diagnostic imaging; Heart - diagnostic imaging; Humans; Iron; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Myocardium; Observer Variation; Pulmonary Circulation; Reproducibility of Results; ROI size; myocardial iron load; Thalassemia major; T2 MRI
• ISSN: 1300-0144; 1303-6165
• DOI: 10.3906/sag-1804-139

The aim of this study was to evaluate the intraobserver and interobserver reliability of cardiac T2* MRI measurements in different region of interest (ROI) sizes.
Cardiac T2* MRIs of 24 thalassemia major patients were evaluated. Two different ROI sizes were used for measurement. In the first measurement, an ROI approximately 5 mm in diameter was used in the interventricular septal myocardium. In the other method, the whole ventricular septal myocardium was used as the measurement. The intraobserver and interobserver variabilities were assessed with the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC).
The measurement of the first observer, the ICC of the small-sized ROI (ssROI), was 0.869, and the measurement for the second observer, the ICC of the ssROI, was 0.659. The ICC of the whole-septal ROI (wsROI) was 0.991 for the first observer and 0.980 for the second observer. Interobserver variability, for the mean measurement, was 0.442 for the ICC of ssROI and 0.883 for the ICC of wsROI.
For the evaluation of myocardial iron load with T2* MRI we suggest making measurements with ROI, including all of the interventricular septum, as a consequence of high intraobserver and interobserver consistency.