Muscle Imaging in Muscular Dystrophies

Abstract

Recent years have seen the increasing use of clinical imaging in the evaluation of muscle disease. As therapeutic interventions in the muscular dystrophies are being developed, there has also been growing interest in the potential role of imaging-based measurements as biomarkers of muscle disease. The goals of this chapter are to describe techniques that are used to evaluate skeletal muscle, describe disease-specific patterns of involvement that have been reported in various muscular dystrophies, and to identify trends in research that can improve our ability to study genetic muscle diseases using imaging modalities.