Non-invasive Imaging of Muscle Structure in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Using Multispectral Optoacoustic Tomography

This pilot study aims to assess subcellular muscle structure in patients with Duchenne X-linked progressive Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) in comparison to healthy volunteers using multispectral optoacoustic tomography (MSOT). During MSOT, a transducer is placed on the skin similar to a conventional sonography and instead of sound, energy is supplied to the tissue by means of light flashes. This leads to a constant change of minimal expansions and contractions (thermoelastic expansion) of individual tissue constituents or molecules. The resulting sound waves can then be detected by the same examination unit.