Searchable abstracts of presentations at key conferences in endocrinology
Endocrine Abstracts (2008) 16 P545

ECE2008 Poster Presentations Obesity (94 abstracts)

The volume of left hepatic lobe as metabolic marker, correlates with weight and not with height, both in obese or non-obese women and men

Dan Peretianu 1 , Mara Carsote 2 , Daniela Cristea Staicu 1 & Catalina Poiana 2


1SCM Povernei, Bucharest, Romania; 2Department of Endocrinology, Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Bucharest, Romania.


Introduction: Left hepatic lobe volume (LHLV) has been associated with hyperinsulinemia and insulin resistance in obese women.

Aim: To study the correlation between LHLV and body weight, regardless the weight and gender of the patient.

Subjects and methods: The left hepatic lobe was evaluated with an echographic probe of 3.5 MHz. The LHLV (cm3) was calculated with the formula: antero-posterior diameter (length)×longitudinal length (right-left)×sagital diameter (length up-down)×0.52. The study group consisted of 648 women, aged between 6 and 87 years and 219 men, aged between 5 and 83 years. None of them had a known hepatic disease. Linear correlation was calculated between body mass index (BMI) and LHLV. Statistical analysis consisted of Student and Pearson test.

Results: LHLV values are presented in the following table. Differences between LHLV in non-obese versus obese women and men are highly statistically significant (P<0.001). Linear correlation between LHLV and BMI in all women was statistically significant (r=0.64, P<0.001), as well as in all men (r=0.62, P<0.001). We found no correlation between LHLV and height in both sexes (r=−0.14, resp. r=0.13).

LHLV (cm3)LHLV (cm3)
WomenAverageSDMenAverageS.D.
All173.967.77All203.7791.36
Non-obese153.7549.99Non-obese179.0066.42
Obese236.9377.58Obese281.32113.60

Conclusions: LHLV is dependent on BMI and not on the patient height: the higher the body fat content is, the larger the left hepatic lobe is in both men and women. The quantitative estimation of LHLV may be a useful surrogate marker in the study of obesity related insulin resistance.

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