Does CMR improve the diagnosis of cardiac involvement in patients with Becker muscular dystrophy compared to echocardiography?
CMR provides better characterization of cardiac involvement in Becker muscular dystrophy than echocardiography, potentially guiding earlier heart failure therapy.
Cardiac involvement in patients with BMD is underdiagnosed by echocardiographic methods resulting in undertreatment of heart failure. The degree and severity of cardiac involvement in this population is best characterised when state-of-the-art CMR methods are applied. Further studies need to demonstrate whether earlier diagnosis and institution of heart failure therapy will extend the life span of these patients.
Yılmaz et al. (Tue,) studied this question.