Comparison of anthropometric, area- and volume-based assessment of abdominal subcutaneous and visceral adipose tissue volumes using multi-detector computed tomography

• Published in: International Journal of Obesity 2007-03, Vol.31 (3), p.500-506
• Main Authors: Maurovich-Horvat, P, Massaro, J, Fox, C.S, Moselewski, F, O'Donnell, C.J, Hoffmann, U
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Abdomen; abdominal fat; accuracy; Adipose tissue; Adipose tissues; Adult; adults; Age; Age Factors; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Biological and medical sciences; Body fat; Body Mass Index; Cohort Studies; Complications and side effects; Computed tomography; CT imaging; Diabetes; Diagnosis; elderly; Epidemiology; Feeding. Feeding behavior; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; gender differences; Health aspects; Health Promotion and Disease Prevention; Heart; Hospitals; Humans; Insulin resistance; Internal Medicine; Intra-Abdominal Fat - anatomy & histology; Intra-Abdominal Fat - ultrastructure; Male; Medical sciences; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; men; Metabolic Diseases; Metabolic syndrome; Middle Aged; Mortality; multi-detector computed tomography; new methods; Obesity; Observer Variation; Offspring; original-article; precision; Public Health; Reproducibility; Reproducibility of Results; Risk factors; Sensors; Sex Factors; subcutaneous fat; Subcutaneous Fat, Abdominal - anatomy & histology; Subcutaneous Fat, Abdominal - ultrastructure; Tomography; Tomography, X-Ray Computed - methods; Vertebrates: anatomy and physiology, studies on body, several organs or systems; visceral fat; waist circumference; Waist-Hip Ratio; White people; Whites; women; Womens health
• ISSN: 0307-0565; 1476-5497
• DOI: 10.1038/sj.ijo.0803454

Purpose: Cross-sectional imaging may enable accurate localization and quantification of subcutaneous and visceral adipose tissue. The reproducibility of multi-detector computed tomography (MDCT)-based volumetric quantification of abdominal adipose tissue and the ability to depict age- and gender-related characteristics of adipose tissue deposition have not been reported. Methods: We evaluated a random subset of 100 Caucasian subjects (age range: 37-83 years; 49% women) of the Framingham Heart Study offspring cohort who underwent MDCT scanning. Two readers measured subcutaneous and visceral adipose tissue volumes (SAV and VAV; cm3) and areas (SAA and VAA; cm2) as well as abdominal sagital diameter (SD) and waist circumference (WC). Results: Inter-reader reproducibility was excellent (relative difference: -0.34+/-0.52% for SAV and 0.59+/-0.93% for VAV, intra-class correlation (ICC)=0.99 each). The mean SAA/VAA ratio was significantly different from the mean SAV/VAV ratio (2.0+/-1.2 vs 1.7+/-0.9; P