G: Iron overload in thalassemia- comparative analysis of magnetic resonance imaging, serum Ferritin and iron content of the liver. Haematologica

epatic iron concentration (HIC) is the most useful method for estimating iron load in chronically transfused patients.1-5 However, while the method is generally safe, it requires a liver biopsy and an undefinible risk of morbidity (and rarely of mortality) is reported.6 Thus alternative procedures for detecting iron load in the body in order to make proper deci-sions concerning chelation therapy are warrant-ed. Attempts to correlate serum ferritin with HIC have failed to demonstrate a linear rela-tionship between the two parameters7,8 and dis-crepancies have frequently been observed. Other studies have focused on evaluating whether magnetic susceptometry (SQUID) and magnet-ic resonance imaging (MRI) or other imaging techniques could be proposed as a substitute for HIC in monitoring iron in the liver and in othe