LINKÖPING, Sweden, February 19, 2025 – A recent collaborative pilot project – led by Lisa VanWagner, MD, MSc of the University of Texas Southwestern (UTSW), and our own Mikael Forsgren, PhD – aimed to evaluate the feasibility of MRI-based body composition profiling, describe waitlist body composition, and assess the natural rate of change in body composition for patients on waitlist and post-LT.
The study followed 18 liver disease patients listed for LT, of which 7 received a transplant. The findings suggest:
- On LT waitlist: Adverse muscle composition (low muscle volume and high muscle fat content) is prevalent in LT candidates and linked to worse health outcomes.
- Post-LT: Patients experience significant muscle growth beyond what was explained by increased body weight, and increased abdominal fat deposition shortly after transplantation, highlighting opportunities for targeted rehabilitation and cardiometabolic risk management.
Given that sarcopenia (loss of muscle volume) is common in those who suffer from end-stage liver disease (ESLD) and poses additional health risks for those awaiting and undergoing LT, coming up with new solutions to objectively assess muscle composition in ESLD has become more important than ever.
“Muscle loss and sarcopenia are critical to recovery and survival after liver transplant. These data provide important information about the natural history of muscle loss in these patients”, remarks Dr. VanWagner, Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Digestive and Liver Diseases at UTSW Medical Center. “Designing interventions to improve adverse muscle composition is a critical next step to improving the long term outcomes of liver transplant survivors.”
AMRA is committed to utilizing their unique fat distribution and muscle composition analysis methodologies to help drive research in the field, aiming to improve risk-stratification in liver transplant and ESLD, and ultimately clinical care. This study aligned with recent work done by AMRA, in which it was demonstrated that MRI-based muscle assessments were feasible in identifying adverse muscle composition within ESLD. Taken together, these two pilot studies demonstrate that AMRA’s methods are feasible in the severely ill patients with ESLD.
Read the full publication, titled ”Body composition and muscle composition phenotypes in patients on waitlist and shortly after liver transplant – results from a pilot study” here.
The study was supported, in part, by the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, Grant Number UL1TR001422, and a Northwestern Medicine Transplant Endowment Grant.
If you want to learn more about how AMRA is using MRI-based fat distribution and muscle composition assessments to advance research in ESLD and beyond, make sure to connect with us by emailing us at info@amramedical.com.
About AMRA Medical
AMRA Medical is a health informatics and precision medicine company that is pioneering body composition analysis, providing cutting-edge solutions to advance both clinical research and patient care initiatives. AMRA’s gold-standard technology delivers multiple fat and muscle biomarkers – derived simply from rapid whole-body MRI scans. AMRA is committed to driving transformative care and simplifying vital decision-making in both research and clinical care settings by offering support services via their innovative platform.
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