Skulls of Fgfr2(C342Y/+) mice differ from normal littermates in a comparable manner with differences between the skulls of humans with Crouzon syndrome and those of unaffected individuals. These findings were consistent across several regions of anatomic interest. Further investigation into the molecular mechanisms underlying the anomalies seen in the Crouzon mouse model is currently under way.
BackgroundThe echogenicity patterns of ultrasound scans contain information of tissue composition in muscles. The aim was: (1) to develop a quantitative ultrasound image analysis to characterize tissue composition in terms of intensity and structure of the ultrasound images, and (2) to use the method for characterization of ultrasound images of the supraspinatus muscle, and the vastus lateralis muscle.MethodsComputerized texture analyses employing first-order and higher-order grey-scale statistics were developed to objectively characterize ultrasound images of m. supraspinatus and m. vastus lateralis from 9 healthy participants.ResultsThe mean grey-scale intensity was higher in the vastus lateralis muscle (p < 0.05) than in the supraspinatus muscle (average value of middle measuring site 51.4 compared to 35.0). Furthermore, the number of spatially connected and homogeneous regions (blobs) was higher in the vastus lateralis (p < 0.05) than in the supraspinatus (average for m. vastus lateralis: 0.092 mm-2 and for m. supraspinatus: 0.016 mm-2).ConclusionThe higher intensity and the higher number of blobs in the vastus lateralis muscle indicates that the thigh muscle contained more non-contractile components than the supraspinatus muscle, and that the muscle was coarser. The image analyses supplemented each other and gave a more complete description of the tissue composition in the muscle than the mean grey-scale value alone.
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