Abdominal fat: Standardized technique for measurement at CT

The authors estimated abdominal fat distribution on the basis of measuremen ts at computed tomography (CT). The attenuation range for fat tissue was de fined as the interval within the mean plus or minus 2 SDs considered to be individual variation. Fat areas found with this method were closely correla ted with those obtained by means of the computed planimetric method or with a fixed attenuation range from -190 to -30 HU as the standard of reference . Although the average CT numbers obtained with different scanners were dis tributed widely, the calculated fat areas were almost identical. This metho d might be a practical and standardized methods at CT.