Publication date: Jun 23, 2026
Epicardial adipose tissue volume (EATV) is increasingly recognized as a cardiometabolic risk marker associated with adverse outcomes. The most established approach for EATV quantification is cardiac computed tomography (CT). MRI offers a radiation-free alternative allowing simultaneous assessment of myocardial function and tissue characteristics; however, standardization and validation are limited. To evaluate a standardized MRI-based method for EATV quantification and determine its agreement with CT. Retrospective. 127 patients with aortic stenosis (AS) (78 +/- 6 years; 38% female) who underwent paired CT and MRI and 11 volunteers (74 +/- 7 years, 45% female) who underwent repeat MRI after ≥ 6 weeks. Short-axis balanced steady-state free precession cine sequence at 3T (AS patients) and 1. 5T (volunteers). On CT, EATV was quantified by manual delineation of the visceral pericardium and voxel-thresholding (-190 to -30 HU). MRI-based EATV quantification used manual volumetry with delineation of the visceral pericardium and epicardium on end-diastolic short-axis cine stacks. Inter-modality agreement was assessed by Spearman correlation and Bland-Altman analysis. Reproducibility was evaluated in 20 patients using intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and coefficient of variation (CoV). Scan-rescan reproducibility for MRI-derived EATV quantification was assessed using ICC and linear regression. p
| Concepts | Keywords |
|---|---|
| 6weeks | cardiac CT |
| Cardiometabolic | cardiac MRI |
| Eatv | epicardial adipose tissue |
| Mri | standardization |
| Volunteers | validation |
Semantics
| Type | Source | Name |
|---|---|---|
| disease | MESH | aortic stenosis |