Development of automatic visceral fat volume calculation software for CT volume data.
OBJECTIVE
To develop automatic visceral fat volume calculation software for computed tomography (CT) volume data and to evaluate its feasibility.


METHODS
A total of 24 sets of whole-body CT volume data and anthropometric measurements were obtained, with three sets for each of four BMI categories (under 20, 20 to 25, 25 to 30, and over 30) in both sexes. True visceral fat volumes were defined on the basis of manual segmentation of the whole-body CT volume data by an experienced radiologist. Software to automatically calculate visceral fat volumes was developed using a region segmentation technique based on morphological analysis with CT value threshold. Automatically calculated visceral fat volumes were evaluated in terms of the correlation coefficient with the true volumes and the error relative to the true volume.


RESULTS
Automatic visceral fat volume calculation results of all 24 data sets were obtained successfully and the average calculation time was 252.7 seconds/case. The correlation coefficients between the true visceral fat volume and the automatically calculated visceral fat volume were over 0.999.


CONCLUSIONS
The newly developed software is feasible for calculating visceral fat volumes in a reasonable time and was proved to have high accuracy.
Department of Radiology, The University of Tokyo Hospital, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8655, Japan.
Mitsutaka
0000-0003-4229-5823
M
Nemoto
Imaging Center, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Xinjiang Medical University, The 2Rd Xiang 38, Nan Hu Dong Road, Urumqi, Xinjiang 830063, China.
Tusufuhan
T
Yeernuer
Department of Radiology, The University of Tokyo Hospital, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8655, Japan.
Yoshitaka
Y
Masutani
Department of Radiology, The University of Tokyo Hospital, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8655, Japan.
Yukihiro
Y
Nomura
Department of Radiology, The University of Tokyo Hospital, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8655, Japan.
Shouhei
S
Hanaoka
Department of Computational Diagnostic Radiology and Preventive Medicine, The University of Tokyo Hospital, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8655, Japan.
Soichiro
S
Miki
Department of Computational Diagnostic Radiology and Preventive Medicine, The University of Tokyo Hospital, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8655, Japan.
Takeharu
0000-0002-1924-5468
T
Yoshikawa
Department of Computational Diagnostic Radiology and Preventive Medicine, The University of Tokyo Hospital, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8655, Japan.
Naoto
0000-0003-2626-0751
N
Hayashi
Department of Radiology, The University of Tokyo Hospital, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8655, Japan.
Kuni
K
Ohtomo
D050154:Adiposity; D000465:Algorithms; D015992:Body Mass Index; D054893:Cone-Beam Computed Tomography; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D050152:Intra-Abdominal Fat; D008297:Male; D012984:Software / Q000592:standards; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods*