Summary
The value of CT-examination of the muscles compared to histology was studied in a retrospective analysis of 30 patients with clinical suspicion of neuromuscular disorder. In the evaluation of the CT-results descriptive criteria were used. The histologic diagnosis came from needle-biopsies taken from the quadriceps muscle. Considering the whole group of neuromuscular disorders, CT has an overall accuracy of 84.8%, a positive predictive value of 95.5% and a negative predictive value of 63.6%. This makes the use of CT as a diagnostic tool in neuromuscular disorders a reliable examination technique. In patients with a polymyositis there is even a 100% correlation between CT findings and biopsy results. Discrepancy between the biopsy results of the quadriceps muscle and the CT findings is remarkable: the number of abnormal histological findings is twice the number of abnormal CT findings. Using the more proximal gluteal region as a biopsy site would have decreased this discrepancy and would therefore have given a better correlation between CT and histology.
The choice of protocol in determining the levels to be scanned is of great importance in achieving good reproducability in follow-up CT examinations.
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vd Vliet, A.M., Thijssen, H.O.M., Joosten, E. et al. CT in neuromuscular disorders: a comparison of CT and histology. Neuroradiology 30, 421–425 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00404107
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00404107