Houchun Harry Hu1, 2, Jason P. Tovar3, Zdena Pavlova3, Thomas G. Perkins4, Vicente Gilsanz1
1Radiology, Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States; 2Electrical Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States; 3Pathology, Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States; 4Philips Healthcare, Cleveland, OH
We report the unique depiction of brown adipose tissue (BAT) by MRI and CT in a human three month-old infant. Based on cellular differences between BAT and more lipid-rich white adipose tissue (WAT), chemical-shift MRI and CT were both capable of generating distinct and complementary signal contrasts between the two tissues and against surrounding anatomy, utilizing T1-weighted fat-signal fraction in the former and X-ray attenuation in the latter. Large bilateral supraclavicular BAT depots (17 ml in total volume) were clearly visualized by both modalities, and identified tissues were subsequently confirmed by biopsy and histological analysis.