A USPIO doped gel phantom for R2* relaxometry

This work describes a phantom containing regions of controlled R2* (1/T2*) values to provide a stable reference object for testing implementations of R2* relaxometry commonly used for liver and heart iron assessments.

A carrageenan-strengthened gadolinium DTPA doped agarose gel was used to enclose nine gels additionally doped with ultra-small superparamagnetic iron oxide. R2* values were determined at 1.5 T using multi-echo GRE sequences and exponential regression of pixel values from a region of interest against echo time using non-linear regression algorithms. We measured R2*, R2 and R1 values and the inter-scan and inter-operator reproducibility.

The phantom reliably demonstrated R2* values in seven steps between 22.4 s^-1 (SE 1.98) and 441.9 s^-1 (SE 6.76), with an R2* relaxivity (r2*) of 792 (SE 5.6) mM^-1 s^-1. The doped gels displayed a concentration-dependent R2' component of R2* phantom, indicating superparamagnetic enhancement effects. We observed no significant change in relaxivity (r2*) over 12 months, and estimate a useful life of 3 years. Detailed descriptions of the production process and calculators are been provided as Online Resources.

The phantom provides a durable test object with controlled R2* relaxation behaviour, useful for a range of R2* relaxometry reference work.