Whole-body MRI for analysis of body composition

The large variability seen in human body composition and the importance of regional adiposity makes imaging the most powerful tool in body composition assessment. MRI is often the method of choice since it has no known long-term side effects, allows large coverage, repeated acquisition, and studies of children and adolescents. Various techniques are used to acquire and analyse whole-body MR data for assessment of body composition. Dixon imaging techniques can be used to derive chemical shift separated water and fat images from multi echo image acquisitions. The standard procedure for whole body investigations uses imaging of multiple sub volumes, using a step-wise stationary table, that might be stitched together in the post processing. The latest development in the field of whole-body MRI (e.g. by acceleration of data acquisition and by the introduction of a moving-table-scanning) has lead to reduced imaging times and increased patient comfort. Our research group has created and validated a fully automated algorithm for segmentation of intra-abdominal/visceral adipose tissue from whole-body water and fat images, rapidly acquired using moving-table-scanning. Today whole-body MRI plays an important role in studies of body composition. Not only can it be used to assess reduction but also the redistribution of adipose tissue, which will also likely be an important feature of future interventional studies.