Alexandra Grimm1,2, Heiko Meyer2, Mathias Nittka2, Esther Raithel2, Andreas Friedberger1, Marc Teschler1, Michael Uder3, Wolfgang Kemmler1, Klaus Engelke1, and Harald H. Quick1,4
1Institute of Medical Physics, Erlangen, Germany, 2Product Definition & Innovation, Siemens Healthcare GmbH, Erlangen, Germany, 3Institute of Radiology, University Hospital Erlangen, Erlangen, Germany, 4Erwin L. Hahn Institute for Magnetic Resonance Imaging, University Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany
Sarcopenia describes muscle degeneration. In
particular with increasing age, muscle tissue is replaced by fatty
infiltrations. We developed an MRI sequence protocol (T1w TSE, PDw
SPACE, PDw TSE Dixon, q-Dixon, and HISTO) for quantifying
this degradation and applied it twice to 54 patients suffering from sarcopenia. Between
both measurements three months of whole body electromyostimulation (EMS) training were performed. Initial results
show that image data can be used for muscle segmentation and determination of
muscle volumes, fat fractions, and fat distribution within the muscles.
Muscle fat fractions correlate with muscle strength. In spectroscopy accurate voxel
repositioning is challenging.
