Epicardial adipose tissue evaluated with cardiac magnetic resonance in normal subject and in patients with ischemic and dilated cardiomyopathies

Methods We retrospectively evaluated 150 patients who underwent CMR (1.5 T, Siemens) in a time span of 22 months: 50 negative (mean age ± standard deviation 47 ± 12.2 years), 50 with CAD (65 ± 9.7 years) and 50 with DCM (56 ± 12.8 years). For each patient we segmented manually the EAT in short-axis cine images at end-diastolic phase with Syngo-Argus software. Volume of EAT was converted into g (g=0.9196*volume). Intra and inter-reader reproducibility in a sub-group of 30 randomly selected patients (10 negative, 10 with CAD, 10 with DCM) was tested. Mann Whitney U and Bland-Altman test were used.