AMRA, in collaboration with Linköping University, has published a reproducibility and repeatability study of its MRI-based method to analyze body composition, in Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.
LINKÖPING, Sweden; June 23, 2020 – AMRA’s recent study, in collaboration with Linköping University, shows between-scanner reproducibility and within-scanner repeatability of a method for MRI-based body composition analysis, also known as body composition profile (BCP) analysis. This work was published in Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (MRM) and an abstract was accepted by ISMRM (International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine) whose Virtual Annual Meeting is scheduled for August.
Eighteen healthy volunteers were scanned twice from neck to knee on five MR scanners from three vendors (GE, Philips and Siemens, including both 1.5T and 3T) on the same day. Visceral adipose tissue, abdominal subcutaneous adipose tissue, thigh muscle volume, muscle fat infiltration, and liver fat were quantified using AMRA® Researcher. The repeated examinations of each subject on the same scanner and on different scanners allowed for estimation of both within-scanner repeatability and between-scanner reproducibility for all body composition measures. Body composition measurements showed high reproducibility across scanners as well as high repeatability within the same scanner.
Eric Converse, AMRA’s CEO, states “This study and other publications position AMRA well for global clinical trials using the three major scanner manufacturers and further allows for eventual clinical use across a greater geography servicing more of the population, not just cities and research centers.”
Repeatability and reproducibility are both valuable. In longitudinal studies, where patients are scanned multiple times in the same scanner, repeatability is more relevant than reproducibility. In clinical diagnosis and for inclusion in multi-center clinical studies, reproducibility is often a primary quality parameter, as different facilities house different scanners. AMRA’s study offers a means to calculate power when applying this method in clinical studies. Also, the results serve as a benchmark for future reproducibility studies of other methods for body composition analysis.
In addition, AMRA’s liver fat fraction had repeatability and reproducibility comparable to the scanner vendors’ clinical liver applications, which suggests that AMRA’s liver fat assessment has the same performance as those methods. Converse continued, ” Specific to liver health, when assessing patients’ health due to liver issues, it is of greater significance to have the whole metabolic picture, not just liver-specific measurements. AMRA’s BCP provides that picture.”
Get the full open access publication from MRM at doi.org/10.1002/mrm.28360 and learn more about AMRA’s methods at amramedical.com/