Although sensitive to disease activity, the mono-exponential muscle water T2 is non-specific to the underlying dominant pathophysiological processes taking place in the different neuromuscular disorders. In this work we performed multi-exponential analysis of muscle water T2-relaxation data acquired in healthy subjects, Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and Inclusion Body Myositis patients. T2-decay curves were obtained using 1H NMR spectra acquired at different echo times. The results put in evidence a distinct water T2-relaxation behavior between inflammatory and dystrophic myopathies, supporting the hypothesis that a multi-exponential analysis of T2-relaxation data can reveal specific pathophysiological information that is missing from mono-exponential analysis.
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