Epicardial Fat from Echocardiography: A New Method for Visceral Adipose Tissue Prediction

Abstract

Research Methods and Procedures:We selected 60 healthy subjects (29 women, 31 men, 49.5 Ϯ 16.2 years) with a wide range of body mass indexes. Each subject underwent transthoracic echocardiogram and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to measure epicardial fat thickness on the right ventricle. Measurements of epicardial adipose tissue thickness were obtained from the same echocardiographic and MRI views and points. MRI was also used to measure VAT cross-sectional areas at the level of L4 to L5. Anthropometric indexes were also measured. Results: Subjects with predominant visceral fat accumulation showed higher epicardial adipose tissue thickness than subjects with predominant peripheral fat distribution: 9.97 Ϯ 2.88 vs. 4.34 Ϯ 1.98 (p ϭ 0.005) and 7.19 Ϯ 2.74 vs. 3.43 Ϯ 1.64 (p ϭ 0.004) in men and women, respectively. Simple linear regression analysis showed an excellent correlation between epicardial adipose tissue and waist circumference (r ϭ 0.895, p ϭ 0.01) and MRI abdominal VAT (r ϭ 0.864, p ϭ 0.01). Multiple regression analysis showed that epicardial adipose tissue thickness (r 2 ϭ 0.442, p ϭ 0.02) was the strongest independent variable correlated to MRI VAT. Bland test confirmed the good agreement between the two methods. Discussion: Epicardial adipose tissue showed a strong correlation with anthropometric and imaging measurements of VAT. Hence, transthoracic echocardiography could be an easy and reliable imaging method for VAT prediction.

Validity of a new automated software program for visceral adipose tissue estimation

“…Recent work has established that there are sub-compartments of adipose tissue within both the subcutaneous compartment, including deep and superficial adipose tissue, 36,37 as well as the visceral adipose tissue compartment, including pericardial adipose tissue, mediastinal adipose tissue and others 38 that may play particularly important roles in the development of disease. 39 Computerassisted manual editing programs such as slice-O-matict allow particular adipose tissue sub-compartments to be visually identified and tagged and therefore hold a key advantage for flexible body composition assessment.…”

Epicardial fat, cardiac geometry and cardiac function in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: Association with the severity of liver disease

“…According to the validated Iacobellis' procedure [28], epicardial fat was measured in the parasternal long-and short-axis views that allow the most accurate measurement of epicardial adipose tissue of the right ventricle, with optimal cursor beam orientation in each view. Because it is compressed during diastole, maximum epicardial fat thickness was measured during end systole [28].…”

“…Because it is compressed during diastole, maximum epicardial fat thickness was measured during end systole [28].…”

Reversible physiological transdifferentiation in the adipose organ

“…white adipocytes originating from brown adipocytes are smaller than white subcutaneous adipocytes (73) ; epicardial visceral fat is strongly correlated with abdominal visceral fat (74) ; in some murine strains all mediastinic fat is BAT and epicardial fat is a component of mediastinic fat (15) . UCP1 protein and its mRNA have recently been demonstrated in human epicardial fat (75) ; mediastinic fat of genetically-obese mice is composed of white adipocytes that are smaller than white adipocytes of subcutaneous fat (A Dover, A Frontini, S Cinti and B Walker, unpublished results).…”