Echocardiographic evaluation of epicardial adipose tissue in non-diabetic, non-hypertensive hemodialysis patients

Purpose: It has been found out that the epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) measured by echocardiography is related with various metabolic parameters. Being accepted as the new cardiovascular risk indicator, there have been few studies on EAT in relation to the patients with end-stage renal failure. In our study, we aim to evaluate EAT and carotid intima media thickness (CIMT) in non-diabetic, non-hypertensive hemodialysis (HD) patients. Methods: Our study recruited 47 non-diabetic, non-hypertensive HD patients (22 males, 25 females, median age 54 (44.3-60.8) years) and an age-gender matched control group consisting 41 healthy subjects (17 males, 24 females, median age 52 (48-56) years). In all patients, EAT was measured by echocardiography and CIMT by ultrasonography; and routine laboratory parameters were studied. Results: In our study, we obtained laboratory findings matching with the profiles of uremic patients among HD patients and CIMT values of HD patients are significantly higher than that of the control group [0.79 (0.64-0.93) vs. 0.6 (0.53-0.68) p<0.001], and EAT values are similar [0.5 (0.33-0.6) vs. 0.4 (0.4-0.53) p>0.05]. Conclusions: EAT is not a cardiovascular risk indicator in HD patients without diabetes mellitus and hypertension. Besides, echocardiographic measurement of EAT is easy, non-invasive, cheap and credible method.