Acoustic radiation force impulse shear wave elastography quantifies upper limb muscle in patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy

We investigated whether the upper limb muscle stiffness quantified by the acoustic radiation force impulse shear wave elastography (ARFI/SWE) is a potential biomarker for age-related muscle alteration and functional decline in patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). 37 patients with DMD and 30 typically developing controls (TDC) were grouped by age (3–8, 9–11, and 12–18 years). ARFI/SWE measured the biceps and deltoid muscle's shear wave velocities (SWVs). Performance of Upper Limb Module (PUL 1.2 module) assessed muscle function in DMD patients. Mann Whitney test compared muscle SWVs between DMD and TDC, stratified by three age groups. We used analysis of variance with Bonferroni correction to compare muscle SWVs between DMD and TDC and correlated muscle SWVs with PUL results in the DMD group. Results showed that the SWVs of biceps differentiated DMD patients from TDC across age groups. Younger DMD patients (3–8 years) exhibited higher SWVs (p = 0.013), but older DMD patients (12–18 years) showed lower SWVS (p = 0.028) than same-aged TDC. DMD patients had decreasing biceps SWVs with age (p