Relationship of epicardial adipose tissue by echocardiography to coronary artery disease

Abstract

These results suggest that EAT may reflect the amount of visceral fat, which is associated with insulin resistance and inflammation. The echocardiographic measurement of EAT may provide additional information for assessing CAD risk and predicting the extent and activity of CAD.

Substantial Changes in Epicardial Fat Thickness After Weight Loss in Severely Obese Subjects

“…In this study, we used the echocardiographic epicardial fat as marker of visceral adiposity, as previous studies from our group (7,12,14,20) and also from other authors (8,21) showed.…”

“…We showed that echocardiographic assessment of epicardial adipose tissue can serve as a new index of cardiac and visceral adiposity. We also previously demonstrated that epicardial fat is clinically correlated with magnetic resonance imaging abdominal visceral adiposity (7), coronary artery disease (8,9), atherosclerosis (10,11), and major anthropometric and metabolic predictors of increased cardiometabolic risk (12)(13)(14). Emerging evidences suggest that epicardial fat may act as therapeutic target during therapeutic interventions modulating the adipose tissue (15).…”

Epicardial Fat Thickness is Increased in Vitamin D Deficient Premenopausal Women and does not Decrease after Short-term Replacement

“…It is a metabolically active organ that generates various bioactive molecules that are directly involved in inflammation and known to modulate vascular and myocardial functions, including adiponectin, tumor necrosis factor-(TNF-), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) 6,7) . EAT thickness measured with transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) has been demonstrated to have a strong correlation with abdominal adiposity measured with computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) 5,8,9) .…”

“…EAT, measured with either TTE or CT, has also been associated with the presence and increased severity of coronary artery disease (CAD), and the presence of coronary calcification in a large number of studies 8,12) . Furthermore, EAT thickness has been demonstrated to be a stronger predictor for CAD than any other visceral adipose tissue located in the body 13) .…”

Epicardial fat thickness as a tool for predicting complicated obesity

“…По данным различных исследований лица с коро-нарным атеросклерозом отличаются большей вели-чиной ТЭЖ по сравнению с пациентами с неизме-ненными коронарными артериями [27], при этом величина показателя взаимосвязана с тяжестью ИБС, определяемой по индексу Gensini [28,29]. У асим-птомных пациентов толщина и объем ЭЖТ незави-симо ассоциированы с кальцификацией коронарных сосудов, оцениваемой по коронарному кальциевому индексу, а также с тяжестью поражения коронарного русла по данным коронароангиографии [30][31][32].…”