Abstract
Objective: Visceral fat obesity is one of the diagnostic criteria of metabolic syndrome in Japan. In view of the increasing prevalence of this syndrome, it is very important to be able to measure the amount of visceral fat very accurately and easily and in this regard, we have continually reported on the usefulness of a visceral fat examination using X-ray CT in our facilities. In order to examine the usefulness of DUALSCAN, the first medical device to be approved for visceral fat measurement, we compared visceral fat measurements made by this device and X-ray CT in the present study.
Methods: Our subjects were 408 adults (297 males and 111 females). We measured their visceral fat area simultaneously using X-ray CT and DUALSCAN and examined relationships between measurements obtained by these 2 methods and various metabolic syndrome-related parameters.
Results: Visceral fat areas measured by the 2 methods were highly correlated (r=0.891 p<0.0001). However, correlation coefficients between visceral fat area measurements made by DUALSCAN and waist circumference, body mass index, and insulin resistance, which is closely related to metabolic syndrome, and liver function ALT (GPT) were higher than those obtained for X-ray CT. Furthermore, there were significant positive correlations between visceral fat area and accumulation of atherosclerosis risk factors, and brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV) for both methods.
Conclusion: Our results showed that DUALSCAN visceral fat measurements were even more closely correlated with the diagnostic parameters of metabolic syndrome than those obtained with X-ray CT. They attest to the usefulness of visceral fat area measurement by DUALSCAN, which would have such additional benefits as no radiation exposure.
