Measurements of iron complexes and iron stores in the body are crucial for evaluation and management of chelation therapy targeted against iron accumulation or overload in blood and organs. In this work, blood and tissue samples from one normal and one thalassaemic laboratory mouse were studied using Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy at 78 K for the first time. In contrast to human patients, these laboratory mice did not receive any medical treatment, thus the iron components present in the samples are not altered from their natural state. TheMössbauer spectra of blood, liver and spleen samples of the thalassaemic mouse were found to differ in shape and iron content compared with corresponding spectra of the normal mouse. These results demonstrate a basis for further exploitation of the thalassaemic mouse model to study thalassaemia and its treatment in more detail using Mössbauer spectroscopy.

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In this work, wild-type and heterozygous β-thalassaemic mice were enriched with 57 Fe through gastrointestinal absorption to characterize in more details the iron complexes appeared in the measured Mössbauer spectra. The 57 Fe enrichment method was validated and Mössbauer spectra were obtained at 80K from blood samples from wild-type and β-thalassaemic mice at 1, 3, 6, and 9 months of age. As expected, the haemoglobin levels of the thalassaemic mice were lower than from normal mice indicating anaemia. Furthermore, significant amounts of ferritin-like iron were observed in the thalassaemic mice samples, which decreased with mouse age, reflecting the pattern of reticulocyte count reduction reported in the literature.

Cranio-caudal respiratory motion and liver activity cause a variety of complex myocardial perfusion (MP) artifacts, especially in the inferior myocardial wall, that may also mask cardiac defects. To assess and characterize such artifacts, an anthropomorphic thorax with moving thoracic phantoms can be utilized in SPECT MP imaging. In this study, a liver phantom was developed, and anatomically added into an anthropomorphic phantom, that encloses an ECG beating cardiac phantom and breathing lungs phantom. A cranio-caudal respiratory motion was also developed for the liver phantom and it was synchronized with the corresponding ones of the cardiac and lungs phantoms. This continuous motion could also be further divided into dynamic respiratory phases, from end-exhalation to end-inspiration, to perform SPECT acquisitions in different respiratory phases. The motion parameters, displacements and volumes, were validated by the acquired CT slices, the OsiriX and Vitrea software. Sample SPECT/16-slice-CT myocardial MP acquisitions were also performed and compared to the literature. The cardiac, lungs and liver phantoms can precisely perform, in time interval of 0.1 sec, physiological thoracic motions within an anthropomorphic thorax. This dynamic phantom assembly can be utilized for SPECT MP supine and, for first time, prone imaging to access and characterize artifacts due to different cranio-caudal respiratory amplitudes and cardiac-liver activity ratios.

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