Springbok Analytics has announced its pivotal role in MOVE Peds (NCT06847282), the first comprehensive clinical study focused specifically on pediatric facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD). The NIH-funded initiative aims to address significant knowledge gaps in how this common muscular dystrophy progresses in children, establishing critical foundations for future pediatric drug trials.
FSHD, while among the most prevalent muscular dystrophies, remains poorly understood in pediatric populations due to limited natural history data. As pharmaceutical companies increasingly target pediatric FSHD, the MOVE Peds study will provide essential information to refine clinical trial strategies, validate outcome measures, and optimize patient selection criteria.
"For drug developers looking at pediatric FSHD, the data from MOVE Peds will be essential," explained Dr. Jeff Statland, the overall study Principal Investigator 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."
AI-Powered Muscle Analysis Transforms Pediatric Imaging
Springbok Analytics is deploying its FDA-cleared, AI-driven muscle health analysis platform to provide comprehensive MRI data acquisition, processing, and analysis across the multi-site study. The company's technology offers several critical advantages for pediatric research:
The protocol achieves whole-body coverage in under 45 minutes, including both muscle composition and inflammation-specific assessments. This rapid scanning capability significantly reduces the time children must spend in the MRI scanner—a crucial consideration for pediatric studies.
Unlike conventional MRI analysis methods, Springbok's AI technology generates detailed data for individual muscles and bone, providing a complete picture of disease impact while adjusting for developmental growth. This comprehensive approach enables optimal comparison between MRI findings and functional test performance.
Importantly, the platform quantifies Short Tau Inversion Recovery (STIR) signals, a key marker of muscle inflammation and early disease activity. This capability is particularly valuable for tracking disease progression and potential treatment effects, which may demonstrate greater variability in pediatric populations.
"This study will be fundamental in helping us define how the disease progresses in children and whether there are distinct subgroups," noted Dr. Seth Friedman, Director of Imaging at Seattle Children's and a Principal Investigator 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."
Establishing the Foundation for Pediatric FSHD Therapeutics
MOVE Peds will enroll pediatric FSHD patients across eight clinical sites, capturing both early-onset and later-onset forms of the disease. The study design incorporates MRI protocols and functional testing specifically optimized for children, enabling researchers to accurately track natural disease progression and develop models for estimating treatment effects.
Scott Magargee, CEO of Springbok Analytics, emphasized the company's commitment to advancing FSHD research: "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. 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."
The study represents a significant milestone in FSHD research, as it will establish the first comprehensive dataset on pediatric disease progression. This information is expected to strengthen clinical endpoints for future trials and potentially expedite regulatory pathways for emerging therapies.
Advancing Multi-Site Clinical Research Standards
Springbok's involvement in MOVE Peds reinforces its position as a key partner for acquiring, analyzing, and interpreting MRI data across multi-center clinical studies. The company's technology enables standardized data collection across different sites while maintaining exceptional analytical precision.
Built on more than 15 years of research and scientific validation, Springbok's technology transforms standard MRI data into detailed 3D visualizations of muscle health. These analyses provide precise metrics on individual muscle volume, composition, fat infiltration, asymmetries, and inflammation markers.
By establishing new standards for muscle health analytics in pediatric populations, Springbok is helping ensure that the next generation of FSHD clinical trials can benefit from faster data acquisition, enhanced analytical precision, and novel data mining strategies to optimize treatment development and monitoring.
The MOVE Peds study represents a critical step forward in addressing the unmet needs of children with FSHD, potentially accelerating the development pathway for targeted therapies in this underserved patient population.
