calculate abdominal fat

[Ali Hashmi]

Hey everyone,

I am trying to calculate abdominal fat on CT scans done at L4-L5 level.
Trying to figure out a validated software for this and came across ImageJ
cited in a publication. I went through the help pages and was not able to
figure out how to calculate Abdominal fat; both visceral and subcutaneous.

If anybody can help me out how to calculate visceral and abdominal fat
compartments, i want separate measurements for both of them.

If anybody has experience in it and if they can comment on how better or
worse ImageJ is compared to those pricy softwares SLICEOMATIC; HIPPOFAT;
ANALYZE.

Thanks
Ali Hashmi
PGY2 Internal Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine

[Thomson Neil (EAST KENT HOSPITALS UNIVERSITY NHS FOUNDATION TRUST)]

Hi Ali

April 1999 Radiology, 211, 283-286 cites using CT number in the range of -190 to -30 HU to calculate body fat. Assuming you're going to be importing CT scans in DICOM format, imageJ will apply a calibration so that the reported gray level is in Hounsfield units. One can then use Image->Adjust->Threshold to set all of the pixels outside of the -190 to -30 range to "not a number" (NaN). To get some quantitative data on the active slice, draw an eliptical ROI around the abdo and use the Analyze->Measure function.

I've found that the calibration does not work when importing an DICOM entire series (as opposed to a single slice), but this data can be entered manually.

Hope this gets you started, Neil


Neil Thomson,
Nuclear Medicine Physics Section,
Medical Physics,
Kent and Canterbury Hospital,
UK. CT1 3NG
[phone]
________________________________________
From: ImageJ Interest Group [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Ali Hashmi [[hidden email]]
Sent: 17 November 2010 18:00
To: [hidden email]
Subject: calculate abdominal fat

Hey everyone,

I am trying to calculate abdominal fat on CT scans done at L4-L5 level.
Trying to figure out a validated software for this and came across ImageJ
cited in a publication. I went through the help pages and was not able to
figure out how to calculate Abdominal fat; both visceral and subcutaneous.

If anybody can help me out how to calculate visceral and abdominal fat
compartments, i want separate measurements for both of them.

If anybody has experience in it and if they can comment on how better or
worse ImageJ is compared to those pricy softwares SLICEOMATIC; HIPPOFAT;
ANALYZE.

Thanks
Ali Hashmi
PGY2 Internal Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine

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