Endocrine Abstracts

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).

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.