AMRA Medical, in collaboration with researchers from National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry in Tokyo as well as Japanese pharmaceutical company Daiichi-Sankyo, are excited to announce the publication of a recent study investigating the utility of AMRA’s fat-referenced MRI measurements in inflammatory myopathies – specifically, sporadic inclusion body myositis (sIBM).
The study, which is published in Muscle & Nerve, demonstrated that the fat-referenced MRI-methodology powering the measurements can be used for volumetric muscle composition analysis in subjects with sIBM, and established a clear relationship between muscle atrophy, muscle fat content, and functional decline over a 12-month period. Importantly, these findings validated the performance of AMRA’s MRI-based muscle and fat biomarkers in sIBM, building upon on recent work that confirmed the utility of these biomarkers in other neuromuscular diseases, namely Facioscapulohumeral Muscular Dystrophy (FSHD).
Using standardized processes for scanner certification and image acquisition, scans from 10 sIBM patients were analyzed using the cloud-based service, AMRA Researcher. AMRA’s unique muscle quantification biomarkers – including muscle fat fraction, lean muscle volume, and muscle fat infiltration – were collected for each participant to characterize muscle composition within the disease pathology. The results of the study support the use of these muscle biomarkers as reliable composite endpoints in sIBM drug trials.
The study comes at a time in neuromuscular disease research where more actionable, unique endpoints are required to assess disease progression and response to treatments, and push drug development for these diseases forward. AMRA’s success in demonstrating the utility of these fat-referenced MRI-based muscle composition biomarkers in FSHD and now in inflammatory myopathies such as sIBM is a testament to the rigor and reproducibility of these composite measurements, transcending various pathologies and allowing for the wide applicability of this biomarker suite to neuromuscular disease research in general.
AMRA is committed to helping pioneer the next wave of neuromuscular disease trials using MRI-based analyses, by delivering biomarkers that enable standardized evaluation of disease progression and treatment response in conditions with high unmet needs. With AMRA, researchers can augment clinical trials with powerful endpoints to gain more holistic insights and, ultimately, advance their clinical pipeline.
