T2* relaxometry tool for calibration and quantification of iron concentration based on multi echo MRI data

This paper presents a graphical user interface (GUI) for the ability to perform quantitative evaluation of iron concentration using multi echo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data in the setting of a clinical environment requiring robust reproducible and also simple workflow. The iron concentration tool (ICT) enables the visualization, selection of a user defined region of interest, and the quantification the multi echo magnetic resonance imaging data into imaging biomarkers such as T2*, R2* and Iron concentration [Fe]. Quantification of [Fe] is based on non-linear fitting and is widely used to follow up patients with hemosiderosis. ICT follows a 4 step workflow comprised of a) reading the multi echo data in DICOM format, b) selecting the region of interest, c) biomarkers extraction and d) results visualization. In the results visualization step the user is also able to assess the goodness of fit through the adjusted R squared metric to ensure fitting quality. The tool is tested through a calibration process, which is performed by acquiring MRI data from 9 vials filled with material of known iron concentration to serve as ground truth. The selected iron concentrations correspond to clinically relevant values of healthy and pathological liver iron concentrations in order to evaluate the system performance and repeatability in real clinical situations.