Assessment of Age-Related Differences in Lower Leg Muscles Quality Using Radiomic Features of Magnetic Resonance...

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Imaging
• Radiology
• Gerontology

Background:

• Sarcopenia, a decline in muscle mass and strength, significantly impacts elderly health, increasing fall risk, hospitalization, and mortality.
• Muscle quality, encompassing microscopic and macroscopic changes, is crucial for physical function in older adults.
• Current assessments of age-related muscle changes often focus on mass, potentially overlooking critical quality alterations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate radiomic features from MRI to assess age-related changes in lower leg muscle quality.
• To differentiate muscle quality between younger and older adults using advanced imaging analysis.
• To explore the utility of radiomics in understanding sarcopenia and its impact on mobility.

Main Methods:

• Utilized MRI data from 24 adults (younger: 21-31 years; older: 66-79 years) focusing on dorsiflexor and plantar flexor muscles.
• Extracted radiomic features using MaZda software, followed by dimensionality reduction (PCA, RFE).
• Employed machine learning models (SVM, XGBoost, Naïve Bayes) with leave-one-out validation to classify age groups based on radiomic features, evaluating performance using AUC.

Main Results:

• Significant differences in radiomic feature distributions were observed between age groups, indicating higher complexity and variability in older adults' muscle texture.
• Plantar flexor muscles demonstrated comparable or superior classification performance (AUC) to dorsiflexor muscles across all models.
• Combining dorsiflexor and plantar flexor muscle data generally improved classification performance (AUC) compared to using either muscle group alone.

Conclusions:

• Radiomic features derived from lower leg MRI effectively reflect the aging process, particularly in plantar flexor muscles.
• Radiomic analysis provides a more comprehensive understanding of age-related muscle quality decline than traditional muscle mass assessments.
• This imaging-based approach holds promise for enhanced evaluation and management of sarcopenia in the elderly.