Comparison of 3 T MRI and CT for the Measurement of Visceral and Subcutaneous Adipose Tissue in Humans

Overview

Journal Br J Radiol

Publisher Oxford University Press

Specialty Radiology

Date 2012 Apr 20

PMID 22514099

Citations 81

Authors

B J Klopfenstein

M S Kim

C M Krisky

J Szumowski

W D Rooney

J Q Purnell

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Objective: CT is considered the gold standard imaging modality for measurement of visceral adipose tissue area. However, as CT imaging exposes subjects to ionising radiation, a comparable imaging technique without this exposure is desirable, such as MRI. Therefore, we compared the agreement of measures of visceral adipose tissue and subcutaneous adipose tissue area from single-slice images obtained at the umbilicus using a 3 T MRI scanner with single-slice images obtained via CT scan.

Methods: 64 images were obtained from 27 subjects who underwent MRI and CT scanning on the same day, after 10-12 hours of fasting. Visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissue depots were manually separated and quantified using a multimodality image-processing software program.

Results: We found good agreement between CT and MRI for the measurement of both visceral adipose tissue and subcutaneous adipose tissue. Bland-Altman difference analysis demonstrated a mean bias of -2.9% (as a portion of total abdominal area) for visceral adipose tissue and +0.4% for subcutaneous adipose tissue, as measured by MRI compared with CT.

Conclusion: MRI is a safe, accurate and precise imaging modality for measuring both visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissue, making it a favourable alternative to CT for quantification of these adipose depots.

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