A Protocol for Assessing Hepatic Fibrosis in Iron-Overloaded Liver Tissue with MR Elastography

David W. Stanley¹, Meng Yin², Kevin J. Glaser², Richard L. Ehman²

Patients that have had high iron concentration in their liver tissue, which leads to severely, shortened T2/T2*, can be problematic at 3.0T because it produces poor MR signal in the liver and MRE liver stiffness measurements may not be valid due to the extremely low SNR. We explored the relationship between the SNR and the motion sensitivity of MRE by varying the time duration of the motion-encoding gradients (MEG) in the MRE pulse sequence. A modified MRE protocol with broader receive bandwidth and fractional period MEG was developed for use in patients with iron-overloaded liver tissue.