Original ArticlePediatric Brown Adipose Tissue: Detection, Epidemiology, and Differences from Adults
Section snippets
Methods
This study was conducted in accordance with institutional guidelines and was approved by the Ethics Committee of Children’s Hospital Boston. All PET scans performed in patients aged 0.7-20.99 years between November 2004 and November 2007 at Children’s Hospital Boston were reviewed, a total of 428 scans in 196 patients. Forty-three scans were performed in 24 patients who were sedated, and these were excluded from the analysis because of the possibility of reduced BAT activity due to the effects
Results
A total of 385 scans performed in 172 patients (75 females and 97 males) were analyzed. Anatomically, pediatric BAT was found consistently in the cervical and supraclavicular depots and much less frequently in the paraspinal and abdominal depots, similar to the distribution in adults.5, 19, 20 We first determined the presence or absence of BAT uptake in each individual patient. In patients who had undergone multiple scans, the study with the highest activity was used for analysis, to determine
Discussion
It had long been assumed that adult humans have no functional BAT.21, 22 That belief was recently overturned by studies from 5 independent groups reporting functional BAT in adult humans.4, 5, 6, 7, 8 In adults, BAT activation measured by PET has a female predominance, and its activity correlates inversely with age,5 BMI,9 and outdoor temperature.5, 8 In children, it had been assumed that BAT is functional only in neonates, and that its activity declines shortly thereafter.3, 23 Our study
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Cited by (0)
Supported by the Eli Lilly Foundation, the National Institutes of Health (grants DK046200, DK081604, DK087317, and RR025757, to A.C.), and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (grant P30 DK036836). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health or the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.