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Abstract #4249

Evaluation of skeletal muscle DTI in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

Melissa Hooijmans 1 , Martijn Froeling 2 , Maarten Versluis 3 , Andrew Webb 1 , Erik Niks 4 , Jan Verschuuren 4 , and Hermien Kan 1

1 Radiology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, Zuid-holland, Netherlands, 2 Radiology, Utrecht Medical Center, Utrecht, Netherlands, 3 Philips, Netherlands, 4 Neurology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, Zuid-holland, Netherlands

Skeletal muscle DTI can potentially serve as a surrogate measure of fiber architecture. This intrinsically T2-weighted sequence is susceptible to SNR and fat percentage. In muscles of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) patients, increased %fat and higher T2 relaxation times could obscure pathophysiological effects on DTI parameter estimation. Our data show that the proposed quality criteria from simulation-based work are suited to reliably determine mean diffusivity (MD) in DMD patients and controls and that multi-parametric MRI is essential to distinguish between confounding effects and pathophysiological processes in skeletal muscle DTI.

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