Abstract
BackgroundComputed tomography (CT) has been used to estimate body composition and determine tissue distribution in dogs, despite limited validation. This may introduce error into estimates of body composition studies and its effect on health in dogs. Further, the modality has not been validated against dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) or over a wide range of dog breeds, ages and sexes. The objective of this study was to validate the use of semi-automated, abdominal volume CT for estimating total body composition of dogs relative to DXA. Twenty-two staff-owned dogs (weighing between 5.1-60 kg) were sedated and underwent full body DXA scan and abdominal CT. Abdominal tissue composition was estimated by CT using semi-automated volume segmentation, over predetermined tissue Hounsfield threshold values. Abdominal tissue composition determined by the various CT threshold ranges was compared to total body composition determined by DXA.ResultsAbdominal tissue composition estimated by CT strongly correlated with the estimates derived from DXA with a small Bland-Altman mean percentage differences in values: total body mass (− 250/2000HU: r2 = 0.985; − 1.10%); total fat mass (− 250/-25HU: r2 = 0.981; − 1.90%); total lean tissue mass (− 25/150HU: r2 = 0.972; 3.47%); and total bone mineral content (150/2000HU: r2 = 0.900; − 0.87%). Although averaged CT values compared well to DXA analysis, there was moderate variation in the individual predicted values. There was near perfect inter- and intra-observer agreement in segmentation volumes for abdominal fat.ConclusionsAbdominal volume computed tomography (CT) accurately and reliably estimates total body composition in dogs, but greater variations may be observed in dogs weighing less than 10 kg.
Highlights
Computed tomography (CT) has been used to estimate body composition and determine tissue distribution in dogs, despite limited validation
Total dual-energy Xray absorptiometry (DXA) mass The total volume of abdominal tissue measured by all threshold value combinations on computed tomography (CT) showed near perfect correlation to total DXA body mass (− 250/2000HU: r2 = 0.985)
There was substantial agreement between the mass predicted by CT abdominal volume and the DXA total body mass (− 250/2000HU: rc lower 95% confidence limit (CL) = 0.982)
Summary
Computed tomography (CT) has been used to estimate body composition and determine tissue distribution in dogs, despite limited validation. This may introduce error into estimates of body composition studies and its effect on health in dogs. There is interest in the influence of other components of body composition such as lean tissue and bone mineral content on health outcomes in dogs [1, 2, 4,5,6] Due to this interest, multiple non-invasive methodologies have been developed to assess body composition in dogs [1]. Computed tomography offers several advantages over DXA analysis due to rapid acquisition time, improved spatial resolution, contrast resolution, ability to view structures in three dimensions, and ability
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