Serial assessment of myocardial T2 in Duchenne muscular dystrophy

Background Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), a lethal X-linked skeletal and cardiac myopathy, affects 1/3500 males[1-2]. MRI studies have shown occult ventricular dysfunction and myocardial fibrosis in DMD patients. Previously we used the Full Width of Half Maximum (FWHM) of T2 distribution in LV to quantify the myocardial structural heterogeneity in DMD patients. In DMD subject groups, we showed that FWHM of the T2 histogram rose progressively with age and decreasing EF indicating that functional impairments could be associated with pre-existing abnormalities in tissue structure in young DMD patients. In this study we assessed the T2 distribution in DMD patients at two time points. We hypothesized that serial FWHM changes can be detected in individual DMD patients during a time when left ventricular ejection fraction (EF) changes are insignificant.