Muscular MRI is regularly used in neuromuscular disorders as a diagnostic and prognostic tool, due to the high resolution of soft-tissue compared to other imaging methods [1]. Quantification of muscular fat content was one of the earliest implementations of quantitative MRI and has been performed for more than 20 years [2] and simple fat measurement techniques like 2- or 3-point Dixon are available as commercial sequence packages from all MRI vendors. Recent trials could demonstrate, that fat content correlates to clinical parameters of mobility in...

For this ethics board approved trial, 11 volunteers (three male and eight female, aged 20 to 38 years) were recruited, which were in average training state and did not participate in regular physical training in the period preceding the trial. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants. All volunteers were scanned in two sessions: before and after a 6 – 8 week training period (variation depending on scanner availability). For the exercise program volunteers were assigned to train the same leg, 3-4 times a...

There was a significant training effect: The mean number per set increased from 26 (19 – 40) in the first training session to 52 (40 -70) in the last training session. However training success was very inhomogeneous ranging from 0 to 46 additional repeats per set (mean 25, SD = 13). Mean fat fraction at rest was 7.1% in both legs in the initial scan. After the training period, mean fat fraction at rest was 6.6% in the non-trained leg (figure 3a) and to 6.8%...

This is the first trial evaluating the influence of training and exercise on fat fraction measurements using quantitative MRI. Consistently to our previous results [6] we found a reduced fat fraction in the second scan. However, we did not detect any significant change in fat fraction over the training period. One possible reason would be the short training period, which lasted only 6 to 8 weeks. However significant changes is muscle CSA were reported after a 6-week training period with 3 training sessions per week...

1. Wattjes MP, Kley RA, Fischer D (2010) Neuromuscular imaging in inherited muscle diseases. Eur Radiol 20:2447–2460 2. Bárány M, Venkatasubramanian PN, Mok E et al. (1989) Quantitative and qualitative fat analysis in human leg muscle of neuromuscular diseases by 1H MR spectroscopy in vivo. Magnetic resonance in medicine : official journal of the Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine / Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine 10:210–226 3. Gaeta M, Messina S, Mileto A et al. (2012) Muscle fat-fraction and mapping in Duchenne muscular...

Selina Kaspar, Arne Fischmann and Christoph Stippich University of Basel Hospital Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine Division of Diagnostic and Interventional Neuroradiology Petersgraben 4 CH-4031 Basel Switzerland, [email protected] The Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Neuroradiology is supported by a grant from Bracco (Switzerland). The sponsor played no role in matters of design, collection, analysis, interpretation of data and writing of the report. Julia Reinhardt andMonika Gloor University of Basel Hospital Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine Division of Radiological Physics Petersgraben 4 CH-4031 Basel...