Quantitative MR is increasingly used to assess muscle damage in muscular dystrophies, including BMD. Early markers that reflect changes in muscle tissue are becoming increasingly important with therapies aimed at preserving muscle tissue. This study used a multi-modal MR approach to examine diffusion properties, the average water T2 and SD of the water T2 in non-fat-infiltrated and fat-infiltrated muscles in BMD. Our results indicate that none of the proposed measures are sensitive to muscle tissue changes prior to the replacement of muscle tissue by fat and that only T2 heterogeneity is sensitive to muscle tissue changes in the presence of fat in patients with BMD.
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