Influence of Oxygen Saturation and Age on Relaxation Time of Gray and White Matter and Diffusion Tensor Imaging Parameters in Children with Cardiac Malformations

The aim of this article is to investigate the influence of reduced arterial oxygenation on cerebral gray and white matter T2* time and parameters of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in children with cardiac malformations. In 23 patients examined by magnetic resonance imaging (3T), parameters were correlated to oxygen saturation and age (regression analysis). Reduced oxygen saturation correlated significantly to gray matter T2* time ( p  ≤ 0.01), whereas fractional anisotropy, mean diffusivity, and radial diffusivity correlated to age ( p  ≤ 0.005) but not to oxygenation. To conclude, gray matter T2* time might be used as a surrogate parameter to estimate oxygenation, and oxygenation does not influence the evaluation of DTI parameters.