[An echographic assessment of fatty tissue distribution and its relation to metabolic complications in patients with...

A new echographic method for the measurement of the fatty tissue in the abdominal region is proposed--subcutaneous (A) and intra-abdominal (B). The method was applied in 38 obese patients. It was established that the ratio waist measurement/haunch measurement correlates moderately with the intraabdominal fatty tissue in men (r = 0.744, p less than 0.01) and to a smaller extent in women (r = 0.457, p less than 0.05). In both sexes with the so-called pathologic obesity/android in women and hyperandroid in men) a large accumulation of visceral fatty tissue is found. In the patients wit obesity accompanied by metabolic complications a considerably greater amount of intraabdominal fatty tissue is found compared to that in the patients without complications. A new index--B/A which is the ratio between the intraabdominal and the subcutaneous fatty tissue is proposed for the assessment of the deposition of fat.