Keywords:
Musculoskeletal soft tissue, MR physics, MR, Physiological studies, Segmentation
Authors:
S. Kaspar, J. Reinhardt, M. Gloor, C. Stippich, D. Fischer, A. Fischmann; Basle/CH
DOI:
10.1594/ecr2013/C-1294
Purpose
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 patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy [3,
4].
As MRI is increasingly used as a surrogate parameter of disease progression in patients with neuromuscular disorders [5],
it is important to estimate the influence of physical activity on quantitative Data to be able to adjust the data accordingly.
We previously examined the influence of a single exercise session on muscle fat content and found a small but significant decrease in fat content [6].
To complete the picture,
we examined the influence of a simple training regimen on quantitative MRI data in the same cohort.