Does the visceral fat tissue show better correlation with the fatty replacement of the pancreas than with BMI?

OBJECTIVE Obesity is a risk factor of fatty replacement of the pancreas. We aimed to investigate whether there is a better correlation between the visceral fat tissue and the fatty infiltration of the pancreas than with the BMI. MATERIALS AND METHODS One hundred-eighteen patients were visually divided into three groups according to the pattern of the fatty infiltration of the pancreas. Group 0 (n=70) has no fatty infiltration, Group 1 (n=23) has fatty infiltration on the head only, and Group 2 (n=25) has fatty infiltration on the entire pancreas. Additionally, the attenuation numbers (HU) were measured separately at the head, body and tail of the pancreas on contrast-enhanced Computed Tomography CT. The sum of the attenuation number of each part of the pancreas was calculated as the attenuation number of the pancreas. A CT-scan was used to calculate the visceral fat area (cm(2)). Correlation coefficients were determined between the visceral fat area and fatty infiltration of the pancreas and the BMI. RESULTS The visceral fat area showed a stronger correlation with the attenuation number of the pancreas than the BMI (r=-0.552, r=-0.345 and p=0.0001, p=0.0001, respectively). The difference existed between the Groups 0 and 1 (p=0.0001) or Groups 0 and 2 (p=0.0001) in terms of visceral fat area. The difference existed only between Group 0 and Group 2 in terms of BMI (p=0.006). CONCLUSIONS The visceral fat tissue area has a stronger correlation than the BMI in the fatty infiltration of the pancreas.