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In this small cohort of patients with RA and no clinically overt cardiovascular disease (CVD), after 18 months of treatment with anti-TNFalpha agents, endothelial function improved significantly while CCA-IMT remained stable. Longitudinal studies using more patients are needed to determine the clinical significance of these findings in relation to the risk of atherosclerosis.

This work demonstrates the use of a fast and precise methodology for evaluating myocardial and liver iron status in multitransfused thalassemic patients by means of a fast T* 2 quantitative MRI (T* 2 qMRI) technique. Myocardial and liver T* 2 values were calculated in 48 thalassemic patients and 21 normal subjects on a 1.5T MRI system using a breath-hold 2D single-slice multiecho gradient-echo (MEGRE) sequence (16 echoes, TR/ TE1/TE16/FA ‫؍‬ 160/2.7/37.65 ms/25°). No ECG gating was used. Myocardial T* 2 , liver T* 2 , and myocardial to muscle (CR/MS) and liver to muscle (LV/MS) T* 2 ratios were correlated with serum ferritin concentration (SFC) levels for all patients. Significant differences in myocardial and liver mean T* 2 , CR/MS, and LV/MS T* 2 values between patients and normal subjects were found (P < 0.0005). Differences in paraspinous muscle mean T* 2 values between patients and normal subjects were not significant. Myocardial T* 2 and CR/MS T* 2 values were not correlated with SFC levels. Liver T* 2 and LV/MS T* 2 values were significantly correlated with SFC (r ‫؍‬ 0.540, P < 0.0005). Myocardial T* 2 and CR/MS T* 2 values were not correlated with either liver T* 2 or LV/MS T* 2 values, respectively. We conclude that myocardial and liver iron deposition can be evaluated using the fast non-ECG-gated T* 2 qMRI technique. Magn Reson Med 57: 742-753, 2007.

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