Skin line and subcutaneous fat in radiology: Opinion

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to shed light on a neglected topic in radiology which is imaging the skin and subcutaneous fat. A few studies showed that imaging of skin line and subcutaneous fat have clinical benefits for health, cosmetic reasons, and overall wellbeing. This paper will list many issues that can be diagnosed when evaluating a skin line, fold, and subcutaneous fat on different imaging modalities like; X-ray, ultrasound, CT, MRI, etc. Furthermore, this paper will show a comparison of those imaging modalities in terms of measurement accuracy, diagnosis of skin and subcutaneous fat diseases, comparison of males and females in terms of fat buildup, and so on. According to the available literature, men have more fat than women in the inner deep layer, but women have more body fat than men. Furthermore, as previously hypothesized and proven wrong, recent paper shows that there is no water in the adipose tissue. In addition, a hierarchy in evaluating skin folds and subcutaneous fat by using imaging modalities is seen in the following order from low accuracy to high accuracy; caliper, X-ray, ultrasound, CT, etc.