Ultrasound imaging to assess skeletal muscle architecture during movements: a systematic review of methods, reliability, and challenges

Abstract

B-mode ultrasound is often used to quantify muscle architecture during movements. Our objectives were to 1) systematically review the reliability of fascicle length (FL) and pennation angles (PA) measured using ultrasound during movements involving voluntary contractions; 2) systematically review the methods used in studies reporting reliability, discuss associated challenges, and provide recommendations to improve the reliability and validity of dynamic ultrasound measurements; and 3) provide an overview of computational approaches for quantifying fascicle architecture, their validity, agreement with manual quantification of fascicle architecture, and advantages and drawbacks. Three databases were searched until June 2019. Studies among healthy human individuals aged 17–85 yr that investigated the reliability of FL or PA in lower-extremity muscles during isoinertial movements and that were written in English were included. Thirty studies ( n = 340 participants) were included for reliability analyses. Between-session reliability as measured by coefficient of multiple correlations (CMC), and coefficient of variation (CV) was FL CMC: 0.89–0.96; CV: 8.3% and PA CMC: 0.87–0.90; CV: 4.5–9.6%. Within-session reliability was FL CMC: 0.82–0.99; CV: 0.0–6.7% and PA CMC: 0.91; CV: 0.0–15.0%. Manual analysis reliability was FL CMC: 0.89–0.96; CV: 0.0–15.9%; PA CMC: 0.84–0.90; and CV: 2.0–9.8%. Computational analysis FL CMC was 0.82–0.99, and PA CV was 14.0–15.0%. Eighteen computational approaches were identified, and these generally showed high agreement with manual analysis and high validity compared with phantoms or synthetic images. B-mode ultrasound is a reliable method to quantify fascicle architecture during movement. Additionally, computational approaches can provide a reliable and valid estimation of fascicle architecture.

Changes in the Viscoelastic Properties of the Vastus Lateralis Muscle With Fatigue

“…Finally, after the reproducibility tests, we found relatively high values for CV (>20%) mainly for VL µ and η. Generally, the criteria for CV is considered to be < 15% compared to the criteria for example for ultrasound studies (Van Hooren et al, 2020). This high level of CV is possibly due to ultrasound probe positioning which could have been moved during contractions despite the probe fixation system used or anisotropy of the muscle tissue.…”

Novel Muscle Imaging in Inflammatory Rheumatic Diseases—A Focus on Ultrasound Shear Wave Elastography and Quantitative MRI

“…Due to recent innovations, ultrasonography has evolved from demonstrating mainly anatomical details to elucidating the physical properties of tissues. Although B-mode ultrasonography has been shown to be reliable in assessing muscle mass and quality ( 5 – 7 ), and muscle fibers during dynamic scanning ( 8 , 9 ), recent interest has been directed to a new type of ultrasound called elastography ( 10 ). This technique provides a measure of the stiffness of tissue ( 11 ).…”

In vivo oscillations of the soleus muscle can be quantified using b-mode ultrasound imaging during walking and running in humans

“…Typical quantities that are extracted from ultrasound images include muscle fascicle length and velocity, muscle thickness and fascicle pennation angle. A large proportion of ultrasound studies of muscle behaviour in humans have focused on the main ankle plantar flexors, soleus (SO), medial gastrocnemius (MG) and lateral gastrocnemius (LG) 17 . This is largely due to their importance for locomotion, location on the leg (which means the transducer can be attached with limited interference to gait) and pennate fascicle architecture (which means fascicle orientation, strain and strain rate can be robustly quantified) 17 .…”

“…A large proportion of ultrasound studies of muscle behaviour in humans have focused on the main ankle plantar flexors, soleus (SO), medial gastrocnemius (MG) and lateral gastrocnemius (LG) 17 . This is largely due to their importance for locomotion, location on the leg (which means the transducer can be attached with limited interference to gait) and pennate fascicle architecture (which means fascicle orientation, strain and strain rate can be robustly quantified) 17 . Additionally, due to their location in the distal leg, these muscles can be considered good candidates to illustrate the influence of ground impacts on in vivo muscle oscillations 7 .…”