Quantitative Whole‐Body Muscle MRI in Adults With Spinal Muscular Atrophy–A Sensitive Tool for Long‐Time Evaluation of Disease Progression

Key Points

• To evaluate the effectiveness of quantitative whole-body MRI in assessing disease progression in adults with spinal muscular atrophy treated with nusinersen.
• Conducted longitudinal quantitative MRI assessments in adult SMA patients.
• Monitored changes in muscle fat fraction (mFF) over time despite stable clinical scores.
• Utilized trained healthcare professionals to analyze qMRI data for detecting disease progression.
• Found that muscle fat fraction (mFF) progressively increases over time.
• Indicated that clinical scores remained stable while mFF changed, suggesting qMRI's sensitivity.
• Proposed qMRI as a more objective biomarker compared to traditional clinical measures for SMA.