Muscle Imaging for Clinical Application (MICA)
In this project, we plan to validate our findings from our pilot study comparing muscle quality biomarkers, increase the number of muscle health assessment methods, and determine how muscle quality can predict health outcomes associated with poor muscle quality in disease and aging. Validating objective biomarkers of disease and age-specific muscle quality will initiate a new approach that will lead to targeted nutrition intervention and help clarify the role of nutrition in mitigating the effects of disease, aging, and health outcomes. This study aims to provide clinicians valuable data to initiate a methodology lending to the objective identification of muscling wasting, malnutrition, and targeted therapy necessary to improve muscle quality and overall, patient health outcomes.
UMBRELLA Study
Muscle wasting negatively impacts functional capacity, quality of life, healthcare costs, and survival in both adult and pediatric patient populations. Objectively characterizing changes in muscle may identify those most in need of therapeutic intervention. The current clinical assessment of muscle is solely based on quantitative techniques, utilizing subjective measures of touch, palpation, and visual inspection. This methodology cannot reliably assess change in this vital tissue depot. This project aims to develop new methodologies utilizing advanced, non-invasive imaging biomarkers for assessment of muscle quantity and quality. Modern advances in ultrasound (US) technology and bioimpedance analysis (BIA) have the potential to identify changes in muscle mass, including both quantitative and qualitative changes, over currently accepted standards.
Heart Transplant Study
Obtaining a heart transplant is crucial for patients with end-stage heart failure when other treatment options have failed. Characterization of skeletal muscle to improve nutritional assessment and predict outcomes can assist with selection of transplant candidates and improve outcomes after surgery. In this study, we are quantifying muscle characteristics in heart transplant and surgery patients using imaging methods, histology and serum data, functional assessment, nutritional assessment, and chart review to understand the prognostic value of nutritional health and muscle health on heart transplant and surgery outcomes. Objective imaging-based measures of muscle and liver, incorporated into standard transplant evaluations, may add essential information to assess the likelihood of success following surgery and identify as a target for therapeutic intervention (i.e. nutrition and physical therapy).