Role of Ultrasound in Diagnosis of Muscle Diseases

"Quantitative ultrasound measurements will be performed to studied muscles according to a standard protocol; for each muscle three consecutive measurements will be made to minimize variation in echo intensity during analysis .The captured images will be analyzed offline for echo intensity by means of computer-assisted grayscale histogram analysis.The study will be performed using My lab 7 ultrasound system (Esaote company, Italy) that is equipped by 7-19 MHz linear array transducer and color and power Doppler.~Technique: evaluation of studied muscles for echo intensity (ECHO), quantitative assessments of echointensity, muscle perfusion, transverse and longitudinal sections of the muscle and its thickness at rest and during maximal voluntary contractions (MVC), overlying subcutaneous fat, cross-sectional area (CSA), and angled fibers of pennate muscles."

"Includes: Motor and sensory nerve conduction study, F-wave and H-reflex study to assess the proximal roots, Electromyography (EMG) of the studied muscles.~using machine: recordings will be performed with a Nihon Kohden equipment (model 7102) with the following parameters: sweep time 8 ms/D, sensitivity 0.5 mV/D, low frequency filter 2 Hz, high frequency filter 10 kHz, stimulation duration 0.1 ms and stimulation frequency 1 Hz."

measured in U/L using ELISA.