T2 Monitoring at 3T for Canine Model of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

Donghoon Lee¹, Zejing Wang², Joshua Park¹, Stephen Tapscott², Martin Kushmerick¹

Gene therapy is one of promising treatment approaches for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. One challenge is to noninvasively monitor treatment responses and thereby to evaluate treatment efficacy. Canine MR imaging was conducted to noninvasively monitor muscle changes due to disease progression and to assess the treatment response after adeno-associated virus (AAV) vector mediated gene therapy. Elevation of T2 was observed for dystrophic muscles comparing to normal muscles and reduction of T2 was monitored for the treated muscles. The results show T2 would be a potential MR marker to study muscle integrity and the treatment efficacy.