Diagnostic imaging in obesity - 01/06/13

Doi : 10.1016/j.beem.2013.02.003

Jürgen Machann, PhD ^a,^b : MR-Physicist, Annette Horstmann, PhD ^c,^e : Research fellow, Mark Born, MD ^d : Consultant Radiologist, Swen Hesse, MD ^e,^f : Scientist in Nuclear Medicine Imaging, Franz Wolfgang Hirsch, MD ^g,^⁎ : Head of Paediatric Radiology
^a Institute for Diabetes Research and Metabolic Diseases (IDM) of the Helmholtz Center Munich at the University of Tübingen (Paul Langerhans Institute Tübingen), Tübingen, Germany
^b Section on Experimental Radiology, Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Hospital Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
^c Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
^d Department of Radiology, Paediatric Radiology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
^e Leipzig University Medical Center, Integrated Research and Treatment Centre (IFB) Adiposity Diseases, Leipzig, Germany
^f Department of Nuclear Medicine, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany
^g Department of Paediatric Radiology, University of Leipzig, Liebigstraße 20a, 04103 Leipzig, Germany

Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 341 97 26450; Fax: +49 341 97 26459.

Abstract

Magnetic resonance of the body offers different techniques for mapping fat deposits (MR Imaging) and analysis of organs with small amounts of lipids (MR Spectroscopy). Possible approaches for whole-body assessment of adipose tissue are presented and discussed and spectroscopic examinations in different organs are depicted. With magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) it has been shown that obesity per se is not a marker for metabolic failure, but depends on regional variations of body composition and ectopic lipid accumulation. In addition MRI of the brain is a powerful research tool to understand the brain’s role in the development and maintenance of obesity and the overconsumption of foods in obese individuals.

Sonography has a low accuracy in estimating hepatic steatosis until now. New sonographic methods have been evaluated to detect hepatic steatosis by physical properties of fatty tissue as tissue stiffness, sound absorption or sound speed.

Nuclear medicine and in particular Positron Emission Tomography (PET) methods are used to explore central pathophysiology, brown adipose tissue activity and alterations in homeostatic feedback and gut-brain communication.

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Keywords : imaging, MRI, ultrasound, nuclear medicine, obesity, spectroscopy, functional MR, radiotracer