Fig. 4.

Grade II lesion of the right medial gastrocnemius (blue arrow on the axial proton density fat-saturated image in a) of a 35-year-old football player. Fibre tracking of the injured area is illustrated (blue arrow in b) and of the ipsi- (b) and contralateral healthy areas (c). Although visually the fibre tracking of the injured muscle area seems to demonstrate shorter and less numerous fibres, no statistically significant differences occurred in our population comparing the tears with all healthy areas. The statistical analyses revealed significant differences in terms of length and amount of fibre tracts only when a ratio between the ROIs on the injured (i.e. represented here by the fibre tracts on the right calf in b) and contralateral extremity (i.e. represented here by the fibre tracts on the left calf in c) was calculated