Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a hereditary neuromuscular disease leading to progressive muscle wasting. As there is a need to identify NMR variables as potential early sensitive indicators of dystrophic muscle response to treatment, we evaluated the sensitivity of 23Na NMR in DMD in comparison to the commonly used water T2 and fat fraction. Sodium anomalies seemed to be systematically present and precede water T2 increases and fatty degenerative changes, also in muscles that were relatively spared. Although still limited in the small number of subjects, the data supports that 23Na could be used to characterize early dystrophic muscle alteration.
This abstract and the presentation materials are available to members only; a login is required.