Body Composition Profile Using MR Images Nets US and Canada Regulatory Clearances

AMRA Medical has received US FDA and Canada’s Medical Device Establishment Licence clearances to distribute it's BCP Scan (Body Composition Profile), which uses muscle and fat biomarkers from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to provide objective and actionable data to clinicians.

The AMRA BCP Scan is offered as a medical device service to promote health and wellness. The technology utilizes AMRA's rapid neck-to-knee MRI protocol, to produce an easy-to-understand and actionable patient-specific report. The report contains patient-specific body composition measurements, such as muscle, fat, and liver fat volumes, with a comparison to normative values based on AMRA's reference database. The report goes further to compare the patient with others of the same sex and body habitus, making the results even more personalized. The body composition measurements derived from the MR images provide information that may promote healthy lifestyle choices. For instance, if the BCP Scan detects a high level of visceral fat—which is associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease—a physician evaluating the results may decide to encourage a lifestyle change of his or her patient that has been shown to reduce visceral fat.

Eric Converse, CEO at AMRA, commented, "We are thrilled to expand this technology to the US and Canada. The AMRA BCP Scan brings health assessment into a new era. Rather than relying on BMI or waist circumference, we have precise fat and muscle measurements so a physician can really see what is going on inside the body." Converse continued, "Our protocol only adds minutes to an already prescribed MRI, and because we deliver the results through a simple report, clinicians and patients can easily understand the information and potentially use that information to make healthy lifestyle choices."