ArticleQuantitative imaging in medicine and surgery2021
Regional variation of thigh muscle fat infiltration in patients with neuromuscular diseases compared to healthy controls.
Article in Quantitative imaging in medicine and surgery, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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11 citing papers in PubMed, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- Longitudinal Assessment of Quantitative Metrics for Skeletal Muscle Health Using 3D Rotational Shear Wave Elasticity Imaging in the Vastus Lateralis.Ultrasound in medicine & biology · 2026Article
- Quantitative MRI Findings and Their Relationship to Muscle Histopathology and Ambulatory Clinical Function in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.Journal of cachexia, sarcopenia and muscle · 2026Article
- From fibro/adipogenic progenitors to adipocytes: Understanding adipogenesis in muscle degeneration for disease modulation.The Journal of physiology · 2025Review
- Muscle fat infiltration: a narrative review of the magnetic resonance (MR)-based evaluation methods and their clinical applications.Quantitative imaging in medicine and surgery · 2024Review
- Characteristics of paraspinal muscle fat infiltration in asymptomatic Chinese adults: a cross-sectional study.Quantitative imaging in medicine and surgery · 2023Article
- Histopathological correlations and fat replacement imaging patterns in recessive limb-girdle muscular dystrophy type 12.Journal of cachexia, sarcopenia and muscle · 2023Article
- Associations between lower extremity muscle fat fraction and motor performance in myotonic dystrophy type 2: A pilot study.Muscle & nerve · 2023Article
- The role of paraspinal muscle degeneration in coronal imbalance in patients with degenerative scoliosis.Quantitative imaging in medicine and surgery · 2022Article
- Assessment of anterior thigh muscle size and fat infiltration using single-slice CT imaging versus automated MRI analysis in adults.The British journal of radiology · 2022Article
- Association of Cervical and Lumbar Paraspinal Muscle Composition Using Texture Analysis of MR-Based Proton Density Fat Fraction Maps.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Quantitative Muscle MRI in Patients with Neuromuscular Diseases-Association of Muscle Proton Density Fat Fraction with Semi-Quantitative Grading of Fatty Infiltration and Muscle Strength at the Thigh Region.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
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19 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
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Abstract
backgroundChemical shift encoding-based water-fat magnetic resonance imaging (CSE-MRI) measures a quantitative biomarker: the proton density fat fraction (PDFF). The aim was to assess regional and proximo-distal PDFF variations at the thigh in patients with myotonic dystrophy type 2 (DM2), limb-girdle muscular dystrophy type 2A (LGMD2A), and late-onset Pompe disease (LOPD) as compared to healthy controls.
methodsSeven patients (n=2 DM2, n=2 LGMD2A, n=3 LOPD) and 20 controls were recruited. A 3D-spoiled gradient echo sequence was used to scan the thigh musculature. Muscles were manually segmented to generate mean muscle PDFF.
resultsIn all three disease entities, there was an increase in muscle fat replacement compared to healthy controls. However, within each disease group, there were patients with a shorter time since symptom onset that only showed mild PDFF elevation (range, 10% to 20%) compared to controls (P≤0.05), whereas patients with a longer period since symptom onset showed a more severe grade of fat replacement with a range of 50% to 70% (P<0.01). Increased PDFF of around 5% was observed for vastus medialis, semimembranosus and gracilis muscles in advanced compared to early DM2. LGMD2A_1 showed an early disease stage with predominantly mild PDFF elevations over all muscles and levels (10.9%±7.1%) compared to controls. The quadriceps, gracilis and biceps femoris muscles showed the highest difference between LGMD2A_1 with 5 years since symptom onset (average PDFF 11.1%±6.9%) compared to LGMD2A_2 with 32 years since symptom onset (average PDFF 66.3%±6.3%). For LOPD patients, overall PDFF elevations were observed in all major hip flexors and extensors (range, 25.8% to 30.8%) compared to controls (range, 1.7% to 2.3%, P<0.05). Proximal-to-distal PDFF highly varied within and between diseases and within controls. The intra-reader reliability was high (reproducibility coefficient ≤2.19%).
conclusionsBy quantitatively measuring muscle fat infiltration at the thigh, we identified candidate muscles for disease monitoring due to their gradual PDFF elevation with longer disease duration. Regional variation between proximal, central, and distal muscle PDFF was high and is important to consider when performing longitudinal MRI follow-ups in the clinical setting or in longitudinal studies.
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