Room-temperature susceptometry detects mostly hepatocyte iron in iron overload patients

Objectives: Hepatic iron overload is an important independent prognostic and cancerogenic factor in patients with chronic liver diseases such as ALD and HCV. Hepatocyte iron overload is considered to be detrimental while inflammatory cells are mandatory iron stores e.g. during inflammation. No noninvasive and cell-type specific detection of hepatic iron exists so far. Methods: We performed room-temperature susceptometry (RTS, Insight magnetics, San Diego) to measure liver iron concentration (LIC) in 32 patients with various liver diseases. All patients underwent liver biopsy to assess cell-type specific iron sco…