MRI quantitative assessment of muscular changes associated to a rehabilitation strategy in FSHD patients

Abstract

Facioscapulohumeral dystrophy is the third genetic myopathy. Given that no therapeutic strategy has proved to be successful, rehabilitation has been considered as an interesting alternative. The aim of this study was to quantitatively evaluate the effects of a personalized rehabilitation strategy using MRI by tracking fat fraction (FF) and contractile volume (CV) over time. The lower limb was scanned before and after a rehabilitation program. FF and CV remained stable over the training period. Clinical parameters evolved positively. FF and CV were correlated to isokinetic strength thereby indicating that both metrics could be considered as biomarkers of the pathology progression.