Springbok Analytics Leads MRI Innovations in Multi-Site Pediatric FSHD Clinical Study

AI-Driven Muscle Analysis to Support MOVE Peds Study, Advancing Trial Readiness for Pediatric FSHD

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., March 17, 2025 /PRNewswire/ – Springbok Analytics (www.springbokanalytics.com), a leader in AI-powered muscle analysis, today announced its role in MOVE Peds, the first large-scale clinical study focused on pediatric facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD; NCT06847282). The study, led by top neuromuscular experts and funded by the NIH, aims to fill critical gaps in understanding how FSHD progresses in children and will set the foundation for future drug trials.

FSHD is one of the most common muscular dystrophies, but its progression in children remains poorly defined due to a lack of large-scale natural history data. With drug developers beginning to shift their focus to pediatric FSHD, MOVE Peds will provide essential information to refine clinical trial strategies, validate outcome measures, optimize inclusion criteria, and solidify MRI’s role as a predictive biomarker—paving the way for accelerated regulatory review and wider physician adoption of emerging therapies.

“For drug developers looking at pediatric FSHD, the data from MOVE Peds will be essential,” said Jeff Statland, MD, the overall study PI at the University of Kansas Medical Center. “Building on our adult studies focused on predicting progression of MRI and functional tests and being able to understand how children change as they grow will be essential to accurately interpreting hopeful treatment effects.”

Springbok’s AI-Powered MRI Analysis: Advancing Pediatric FSHD Research

Springbok Analytics is bringing its cutting-edge, AI-driven muscle health analysis to MOVE Peds, providing a fully integrated, turnkey solution for MRI data acquisition, processing, and analysis. Springbok’s contributions include:

• Speed & Efficiency: The protocol is designed for rapid scanning (less than 45 minutes for whole body coverage including both muscle and inflammation specific assessments), minimizing the time children spend in the MRI scanner—a critical factor for pediatric studies.
• Comprehensive Muscle Analytics: Unlike alternative MRI analytic methods, Springbok’s acquisition and AI-methods generate data for all individual muscles and bone. This ensures a complete picture of disease impact, over-time adjustment for developmental growth, and allows optimal comparison of MRI data to functional test performance.
• Quantifying Fat & STIR Signals: Springbok quantifies Short Tau Inversion Recovery (STIR), a key marker of muscle inflammation and early disease activity—critical for tracking disease progression and treatment effects, which may vary more in children.
• Deep Analytical Insights: The AI-driven analysis extracts a wealth of data on muscle and fat composition, strengthening clinical endpoints for pediatric FSHD trials and potentially expediting regulatory pathways.

“This study will be fundamental in helping us define how the disease progresses in children and whether there are distinct subgroups,” said Seth Friedman, PhD, Director of Imaging at Seattle Children’s and a PI in the MOVE Peds trial. “From our adult data, we have learned that tracking individual muscles is critical to following the disease over time. This will likely be even more important in kids given they are rapidly growing.”

Laying the Groundwork for Pediatric FSHD Drug Development

MOVE Peds will enroll pediatric FSHD patients across eight clinical sites, capturing both early-onset and later-onset pediatric forms of the disease. Using MRI and functional testing optimized for children, it will allow the team to accurately track the natural history of disease progression and create models to estimate treatment effects.

“At Springbok, we are redefining what’s possible with muscle MRI imaging, ensuring the process is patient-friendly, rapid and scalable and the analytics are precise, scientifically valid and useful,” said Scott Magargee, CEO of Springbok Analytics. “As part of the MOVE Peds study in particular, we are supporting the incredibly important research being conducted by these world-renowned scientists and helping to accelerate the path to new therapies by providing unprecedented insight into muscle changes over time.”

Springbok’s involvement in MOVE Peds reinforces its position as an essential partner for acquiring, analyzing, and interpreting MRI data across multi-site studies. By setting a new standard for muscle health analytics, the company is ensuring that the next generation of FSHD clinical trials can benefit from faster and more comprehensive data acquisition, enhanced analytic precision, and novel data mining strategies to optimize our ability to follow and treat FSHD.

Learn more about how Springbok Analytics is advancing muscle health research, studies, and clinical trials—contact us directly here.

About Springbok Analytics:

Springbok Analytics is a leading muscle health analytics company dedicated to advancing health and performance outcomes through innovative, AI-driven solutions that deliver a clearer, more comprehensive view of muscle health.

Built on more than 15 years of research and scientific validation, Springbok’s FDA-cleared technology transforms MRI data into personalized, 3D visualizations of muscle health. These detailed analyses provide precise metrics, including individual muscle volume and composition, fat infiltration, asymmetries, scar tissue, edema, and tendon morphology. By offering a more accurate and complete understanding of musculoskeletal health, Springbok enhances diagnostic accuracy, treatment monitoring, research capabilities, and performance optimization.

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SOURCE Springbok Analytics