title: Ultrasonography for the evaluation of visceral fat and cardiovascular risk.
abstract: Visceral fat accumulation is associated with increased cardiovascular risk. Clinical evaluation of visceral fat is limited because of the lack of reliable and low-cost methods. To assess the correlation between ultrasonography and computed tomography (CT) for the evaluation of visceral fat, 101 obese women, age 50.5+/-7.7 years with a body mass index of 39.2+/-5.4 kg/m(2), were submitted to ultrasonograph and CT scans. Visceral fat measured by ultrasonography, 1 cm above the umbilical knot, showed a high correlation with CT-determined visceral fat (r=0.67, P<0.0001). The ultrasonograph method showed good reproducibility with an intra-observer variation coefficient of <2%. Both ultrasonograph and CT visceral fat values were correlated with fasting insulin (r=0.29 and r=0.27, P<0.01) and plasma glucose 2 hours after oral glucose load (r=0.22 and r=0.34, P<0.05), indicating that ultrasonography is a useful method to evaluate cardiovascular risk. A significant correlation was also found between visceral fat by CT and serum sodium (r=0.18, P<0.05). A ultrasonograph-determined visceral-to-subcutaneous fat ratio of 2.50 was established as a cutoff value to define patients with abdominal visceral obesity. This value also identified patients with higher levels of plasma glucose, serum insulin and triglycerides and lower levels of HDL-cholesterol, which are metabolic abnormalities characteristic of the metabolic syndrome. Our data demonstrate that ultrasonography is a precise and reliable method for evaluation of visceral fat and identification of patients with adverse metabolic profile.
authors.affiliation: Division of Endocrinology, Federal University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. fflexa@uol.com.br
authors.forename: F F
authors.initials: FF
authors.lastname: Ribeiro-Filho
authors.forename: A N
authors.initials: AN
authors.lastname: Faria
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Kohlmann
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ajzen
authors.forename: A B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Ribeiro
authors.forename: M T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Zanella
authors.forename: S R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Ferreira
mesh_terms: D000273:Adipose Tissue / Q000378:metabolism*; D000328:Adult; D001786:Blood Glucose / Q000378:metabolism; D015992:Body Mass Index; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000209:etiology / Q000378:metabolism*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D005951:Glucose Tolerance Test; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009765:Obesity / Q000150:complications / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012307:Risk Factors; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed; D014463:Ultrasonography; D014781:Viscera
chemical_list: D001786:Blood Glucose