T2/T2* based relaxometry is increasingly used to non-invasively quantify tissue iron content in lieu of biopsy. However, studies have shown that the observed linear relationship between R2 (1/T2) and tissue iron concentrations does not hold true above an iron concentration threshold (dubbed as the ‘saturation threshold’) [1,2]. Our numerical simulations and phantom experiments show that the choice of interval between the echo times used to sample T2 decay, and noise levels play a crucial role in determining the saturation threshold, and that the linear relationship between iron concentration and R2 can be extended by judiciously varying echo spacing.
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