• Taigang He, Peter D Gatehouse, Paul Kirk, Mark A Tanner, Gillian C Smith, Jennifer Keegan, Raad H Mohiaddin, Dudley J Pennell, and David N Firmin.
• Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Unit, Royal Brompton Hospital and Imperial College, Sydney Street, London, United Kingdom. t.he@ic.ac.uk
• J Magn Reson Imaging. 2007 Jun 1; 25 (6): 1205-9.

PurposeTo compare the effectiveness and reproducibility of a new black-blood sequence vs. a conventional bright-blood gradient-echo T2* sequence for myocardial iron overload measurement in thalassemia.Materials And MethodsTwenty thalassemia patients were studied. Black-blood sequence images were acquired in diastole after a double inversion recovery (DIR) preparation pulse. Bright-blood sequence images were acquired in both early systole and late diastole. The data were randomized and the T2* analysis was performed blindly by two independent observers.ResultsThe T2* values from the black-blood sequence were comparable to those of the conventional bright-blood sequence (25.7 +/- 12.9 msec vs. 26.4 +/- 14.2 msec in early systole, P = 0.44; and 25.2 +/- 13.1 msec in late diastole, P = 0.41). The coefficient of variation (CV) for black-blood image T2* analysis was 4.1% compared with 8.9% (early systole P = 0.03) and 7.8% (late diastole P = 0.05) for bright-blood image analysis.ConclusionThe black-blood T2* technique yields high-contrast myocardial images, provides clearly depicted myocardial borders, and avoids blood signal contamination of the myocardium while yielding improvements in interobserver variability.(c) 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

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