Manually defining regions of interest when quantifying paravertebral muscles fatty infiltration from axial magnetic resonance imaging: A proposed method for the lumbar spine with anatomical crossreference

There is increasing interest in paravertebral muscle composition as a potential prognostic and diagnostic element in lumbar spine health. As a consequence, it is becoming popular to use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to examine muscle volume and fatty infiltration in lumbar paravertebral muscles to assess both agerelated change and their clinical relevance in low back pain (LBP).