Advanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Muscles in Sports Medicine

Abstract

MRI is the method of choice to confirm and evaluate the extent and severity of muscle injuries in acute and chronic situations. However, sports medicine physicians frequently face in their clinical practice cases of persistent clinical symptoms and/or persistent loss of function after muscle injury, with routine imaging including MRI that is unremarkable. Moreover, function and composition of muscle tissue cannot be assessed with routine MRI. Advanced MRI techniques for muscle assessment are available and may provide information on composition, microstructure, and function of muscles or groups of muscles. To date, these techniques have been applied mainly in clinical research regarding other muscle affections such as muscular dystrophy and other myopathies. Some of these techniques are widely available in clinical scanners (T2 mapping, proton MR spectroscopy, fat-water separation techniques), whereas others require special software and hardware and are not widely available in clinical practice (diffusion-tensor imaging (DTI), phosphorus MR spectroscopy, MR elastography). In this chapter, we will discuss these advanced MRI techniques for muscle assessment and their potential applications in sports medicine.