Paraspinal muscles in low back pain: Comparison between standard parameters and chemical shift encoding-based water-fat MRI

Abstract

Low back pain (LBP) is a global health burden, and up to 90% of affected patients are diagnosed with non-specific LBP. A structure increasingly recognized as a potential contributor to LBP is paraspinal musculature (PSM). In this study we revealed that the fat fraction (FF) of PSM derived from chemical shift encoding-based water-fat MRI (CSE-MRI) is associated with the Goutallier classification (GC) at each lumbar level as well as with self-reported pain. In contrast, other parameters (muscle volume, lumbar indentation value [LIV], muscle-fat index [MFI]) do not significantly correlate to the FF, despite being frequently used to evaluate PSM quality.