Patients with sickle cell disease have altered brain fractional anisotropy, axial, mean and radial diffusivity quantified by 7T MRI.

This abstract compares diffusion tensor imaging parameters between healthy controls and sickle cell disease (SCD) patients. Various softwares were utilized to obtain diffusion metrics and conduct voxelwise comparison was conducted. Fractional anisotropy (FA) and axial diffusivity (AD) values were significantly decreased in patients with SCD compared to controls, while mean diffusivity (MD) and radial diffusivity (RD) were primarily increased in patients compared to controls. Our FA and MD findings are consistent with other studies comparing diffusion metrics of individuals with SCD at a lower magnet field. We also present novel findings comparing AD and RD values for the SCD population.