T2* assessment for the heart and liver
Heart failure caused by myocardial iron overload is the most common cause of death in thalassaemia major, affecting up to 71% of patients. Recent studies have indicated that MR myocardial T2* reflects iron levels, and that short T2* is related to impaired ventricular function. Myocardial T2* measurements using CMR therefore play an important role in the early detection of cardiac iron overload (which cannot be predicted by liver iron or serum ferritin) and monitoring of iron-chelation therapy. This is attractive because CMR is widely available worldwide, and can be simultaneously applied in the liver where a calibrated inverse relationship between T2* and liver iron concentration is available.
ThalassaemiaTools is a CMRtools plug-in for the assessment of iron loading in the heart and liver. It provides a step-by-step approach to calculating T2* from CMR images. Other plug-ins for CMRtools include VentricularTools for analysing the left and right ventricles, ModellingTools for constructing detailed cardiovascular models, PerfusionTools for first-pass myocardial perfusion quantification, and 3Dtools for real-time 3D image visualisation. The software is designed to run on standard PCs including laptops running Microsoft Windows.
ThalassaemiaTools offers a user friendly environment and easy-to-follow analysis workflow for the accurate quantification of T2* with features including:
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In-plane motion correction
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Simplified multi-slice ROI/segmental analysis
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Accurate T2* fitting with constrained optimisation
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Interactive analysis-data interrogation and visualisation
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Versatile data export
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Full analysis session record for providing comprehensive audit trails
The current version of CMRtools and its plug-ins
ThalassaemiaTools, VentricularTools, LVtools, LateEnhancementTools,
3Dtools and PerfusionTools is intended for use as an investigational
device for cardiac research only and must not be used for clinical
diagnosis in the United States. A 510(k) application is being made to
the FDA for CMRtools and its plug-ins VentricularTools and
ThalassaemiaTools.
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