Use of B-mode ultrasound for visceral fat mass evaluation: comparisons with magnetic resonance imaging

The validity of the visceral fat evaluation based on B-mode ultrasonography was tested on 30 healthy young women (mean age 19.6 years). The mass of visceral fat (VFM) was estimated by subtracting the subcutaneous fat mass (SFM) from the total body fat mass. The SFM was calculated as the sum of segmental subcutaneous fat mass determined from the surface area and mean thickness of adipose tissue in six body segments (face and neck, upper arm, forearm, thigh, lower leg, and trunk). Reproducibility of the determination of VFM by the repeated measures of SFM and total fat mass was sufficiently high with the difference of 5.0%. Serial cross-sectional areas of visceral adipose tissue (VATarea) were measured by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at three different positions of the trunk (at umbilicus and at 3.5 cm upper and lower positions). The VFM correlated significantly to each VATarea (r = 0.75 to r = 0.78, P < 0.01). The present findings suggest that the VFM can be determined with the use of B-mode ultrasonography for the clinical assessment and field surveys.