Comparison and precision of visceral adipose tissue measurement techniques in a multisite longitudinal study using MRI

Background

Measurement of visceral adipose tissue (VAT) using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is considered accurate and safe. Single slice measurements perform similar to volumetric measurements for cross-sectional observation studies but may not perform as well for longitudinal studies. This study compared the performance of single slice to volumetric VAT measurements in a prospective longitudinal study. Consistency of results across sites and over time was also evaluated.

Methods

A total of 935 healthy participants were recruited and scanned with MRI twice, approximately six months apart as part of a randomized, controlled, parallel arm, unblinded study conducted at four clinical centers in the United States. A 3D Dixon MRI sequence was used to image the abdomen, and visceral fat volumes were quantified for the abdomen, reduced coverage volumes (11 and 25 slices), and at single slices positioned at anatomical landmarks. A traveling phantom was scanned twice at all imaging sites.

Results

The correlation of single slice VAT measurement to full abdomen volumetric measurements ranged from 0.78 to 0.93 for cross-sectional observation measurements and 0.30 to 0.55 for longitudinal change. Reduced coverage volumetric measurement outperformed single slice measurements but still showed improved precision with more slices with cross-sectional observation and longitudinal correlations of 0.94 and 0.66 for 11 slices and 0.94 and 0.70 for 25 slices, respectively. No significant differences were observed across sites or over time with the traveling phantom and the volume measurements had a standard deviation of 14.1 mL, 2.6% of the measured volume.

Conclusion

Single slice VAT measurements had significantly lower correlation with abdomen VAT volume for longitudinal change than for cross-sectional observation measurements and may not be suitable for longitudinal studies. Data from multiple sites, different scanners, and over time did not show significant differences.