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Updated: Jul 21, 2026
Quantitative Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Skeletal Muscle Disease
Published on: December 18, 2016
Body composition measurement in young children using quantitative magnetic resonance: a comparison with air
L-W Chen1, M-T Tint2, M V Fortier3
1Department of Paediatrics, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
Background:
Quantitative magnetic resonance (QMR) has been increasingly used to measure human body composition, but its use and validation in children is limited.
Objective:
We compared body composition measurement by QMR and air displacement plethysmography (ADP) in preschool children from Singapore's multi-ethnic Asian population (n = 152; mean ± SD age: 5.0 ± 0.1 years).
Methods:
Agreements between QMR-based and ADP-based fat mass and fat mass index (FMI) were assessed using intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), reduced major axis regression and Bland-Altman plot analyses. Analyses were stratified for the child's sex.
Results:
Substantial agreement was observed between QMR-based and ADP-based fat mass (ICC: 0.85) and FMI (ICC: 0.82). Reduced major axis regression analysis suggested that QMR measurements were generally lower than ADP measurements. Bland-Altman analysis similarly revealed that QMR-based fat mass were (mean difference [95% limits of agreement]) -0.5 (-2.1 to +1.1) kg lower than ADP-based fat mass and QMR-based FMI were -0.4 (-1.8 to +0.9) kg/m2 lower than ADP-based FMI. Stratification by offspring sex revealed better agreement of QMR and ADP measurements in girls than in boys.
Conclusions:
QMR-based fat mass and FMI showed substantial agreement with, but was generally lower than, ADP-based measures in young Asian children.
