Reliability and accuracy of skeletal muscle imaging in limb-girdle muscular dystrophies.

Objective: To evaluate the reliability and accuracy of skeletal muscle CT to correctly identify different muscular dystrophies manifesting with limb-girdle weakness.

Methods: Four evaluators assessed scans from 118 patients with limb-girdle muscular dystrophy (LGMD) caused by mutations in 7 different genes and from 32 controls. The conditions studied were scans of genetically confirmed cases of Becker muscular dystrophy (BMD) (n = 28), LGMD2C-F (sarcoglycanopathies) (n = 11), LGMD2I (n = 4), LGMD1B (n = 26), LGMD2A (n = 24), Bethlem myopathy (n = 14), and LGMD2L (n = 11).

MR imaging predictors of local control of glottic squamous cell carcinoma treated with radiation alone.

Purpose: To retrospectively evaluate the prognostic significance of magnetic resonance (MR) imaging-determined tumor parameters, especially the presence of cartilage invasion, regarding local control of glottic squamous cell carcinoma treated with radiation therapy (RT) alone.

Materials And Methods: The study was performed with the approval of our institutional review board; direct patient consent was waived. Pretreatment MR images of 118 patients aged 41-86 years (110 men, eight women) with glottic carcinoma treated with RT alone were reviewed for tumor involvement of specific laryngeal anatomic subsites (including laryngeal cartilage), tumor volume, and extralaryngeal tumor spread; these findings were compared with local control.

Supraglottic carcinoma treated with curative radiation therapy: identification of prognostic groups with MR imaging.

Purpose: To retrospectively assess the prognostic meaning of tumor characteristics depicted on pretreatment magnetic resonance (MR) images for local outcome in supraglottic squamous cell carcinoma treated with definitive radiation therapy.

Materials And Methods: Pretreatment MR images acquired in 84 patients with supraglottic carcinoma treated with curative radiation therapy were reviewed for tumor involvement of laryngeal sites including glottis, subglottis, pre-epiglottic space, laryngeal cartilages, and hypopharynx, and for extralaryngeal extension. The volume of each tumor was estimated, and mean tumor volume was calculated for the group of tumors in each T staging category.