Association of Cervical and Lumbar Paraspinal Muscle Composition Using Texture Analysis of MR-Based Proton Density Fat Fraction Maps

Abstract

In this study, the associations of cervical and lumbar paraspinal musculature based on a texture analysis of proton density fat fraction (PDFF) maps were investigated to identify gender- and anatomical location-specific structural patterns. Seventy-nine volunteers (25 men, 54 women) participated in the present study (mean age ± standard deviation: men: 43.7 ± 24.6 years; women: 37.1 ± 14.0 years). Using manual segmentations of the PDFF maps, texture analysis was performed and texture features were extracted. A significant difference in the mean PDFF between men and women was observed in the erector spinae muscle (p p > 0.05 each). Among others, Variance(global) and Kurtosis(global) showed significantly higher values in men than in women in all included muscle groups (p p p p p = 0.01), Homogeneity (p p = 0.037) differed significantly between the three muscle compartments. The cervical and lumbar paraspinal musculature composition seems to be gender-specific and has anatomical location-specific structural patterns.

Keywords

• magnetic resonance imaging
• quantitative imaging
• proton density fat fraction
• muscle composition
• paraspinal muscle
• texture analysis