Semi-Automatic MRI Muscle Volumetry to Diagnose and Monitor Hereditary and Acquired Polyneuropathies

Friederike S Bähr; Burkhard Gess; Madlaine Müller; Sandro Romanzetti; Michael Gadermayr; Christiane Kuhl; Sven Nebelung; Jörg B Schulz; Maike F Dohrn

doi:10.3390/brainsci11020202

Semi-Automatic MRI Muscle Volumetry to Diagnose and Monitor Hereditary and Acquired Polyneuropathies

Brain Sci. 2021 Feb 6;11(2):202. doi: 10.3390/brainsci11020202.

Authors

Friederike S Bähr¹, Burkhard Gess¹, Madlaine Müller^{1

2}, Sandro Romanzetti¹, Michael Gadermayr^{3

4}, Christiane Kuhl⁵, Sven Nebelung^{5

6}, Jörg B Schulz^{1

7}, Maike F Dohrn^{1

8}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Neurology, Medical Faculty of the RWTH Aachen University, 52074 Aachen, Germany.
² Department of Neurology, Inselspital Bern, CH-3010 Bern, Switzerland.
³ Institute of Imaging and Computer Vision, RWTH Aachen University, 52074 Aachen, Germany.
⁴ Salzburg University of Applied Sciences, 5020 Salzburg, Austria.
⁵ Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Medical Faculty of the RWTH Aachen University, 52074 Aachen, Germany.
⁶ Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Medical Faculty, University Düsseldorf, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany.
⁷ JARA-BRAIN Institute Molecular Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, ForschungszentrumJülich GmbH and RWTH Aachen University, 52425 Jülich, Germany.
⁸ Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation, Department of Human Genetics and John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, FL 33136, USA.

Abstract

With emerging treatment approaches, it is crucial to correctly diagnose and monitor hereditary and acquired polyneuropathies. This study aimed to assess the validity and accuracy of magnet resonance imaging (MRI)-based muscle volumetry.Using semi-automatic segmentations of upper- and lower leg muscles based on whole-body MRI and axial T1-weighted turbo spin-echo sequences, we compared and correlated muscle volumes, and clinical and neurophysiological parameters in demyelinating Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT) (n = 13), chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) (n = 27), and other neuropathy (n = 17) patients.The muscle volumes of lower legs correlated with foot dorsiflexion strength (p < 0.0001), CMT Neuropathy Score 2 (p < 0.0001), early gait disorders (p = 0.0486), and in CIDP patients with tibial nerve conduction velocities (p = 0.0092). Lower (p = 0.0218) and upper (p = 0.0342) leg muscles were significantly larger in CIDP compared to CMT patients. At one-year follow-up (n = 15), leg muscle volumes showed no significant decrease.MRI muscle volumetry is a promising method to differentiate and characterize neuropathies in clinical practice.

Keywords: CIDP; CMT; MRI; biomarker; muscle volume; neuropathy.