Heterogeneity in myocardial iron content in pediatric and young adult patients

Ten patients had repeated measurements of the their midventricular T2* imaging, and an additional 8 patients had measurements at three slice locations (9/18 males, median age 19.3 years, range 11.2-23.6 years). For the initial 10 patients, the median T2* value was 21.3 ms (range 6.336.0), with a median standard deviation of 1.5 ms (range 0.1-4.4) at the mid-ventricular level. Two of ten patients had values that spanned the clinically accepted cut-point of 20 ms, indicating they could have been classified as either normal or mildly abnormal depending on which image was selected for analysis. For the 8 patients with multiple slice locations analyzed, the median T2* values were 29.5 ms (9.5-47.2), 25.9 (12.5-37.3), and 22.7 (9.933.7) for the apex, mid, and basilar levels respectively. While the median standard deviations for each slice location were low (0.6, 0.9, and 0.5 respectively), the differences between the slice locations resulted in 1 patient having values both above and below 20 ms, and 2 additional patients with values above and below the “severely abnormal” cut-point of 10 ms. Conclusions