title: Diagnostic yield of noninvasive high spatial resolution electromyography in neuromuscular diseases.
abstract: High Spatial Resolution electromyography (HSR-EMG), a new kind of noninvasive surface EMG based on a spatial filtering technique, was evaluated with respect to the diagnosis of neuromuscular diseases. HSR-EMG measurements were recorded from 61 healthy subjects and 72 patients with different neuromuscular diseases and analyzed quantitatively. The results indicate that a few parameters such as muscular conduction velocity, dwell time over root mean square, autocorrelation function, and chi-value are sufficient to recognize and classify specific signal alterations due to neuromuscular disorders. A diagnostic evaluation procedure calculating automatically the most probable diagnosis from the parameter results could assign the correct diagnosis to about 81% of the investigated patients and healthy subjects. Myopathic disorders were recognized with a sensitivity of 85% (specificity: 97%), neuropathic disorders with a sensitivity of 68% (specificity: 98%). We conclude that HSR-EMG shows a diagnostic validity similar to that described in literature for needle EMG. Moreover, the noninvasive technique provides the advantage of a simple and painless application.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Aachen, University of Technology, Germany.
authors.forename: H J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Huppertz
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Disselhorst-Klug
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Silny
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rau
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Heimann
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004576:Electromyography / Q000379:methods*; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D009135:Muscular Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis; D009422:Nervous System Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis; D009468:Neuromuscular Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity