Objective. The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of sonography in the detection of plantar fasciitis (PF) compared with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings in subjects with inferior heel pain. Methods. Seventy-seven patients with unilateral (n = 9) and bilateral (n = 68) heel pain were studied. Seventy-seven age-and sex-matched asymptomatic subjects served as a control group. Magnetic resonance imaging was used to establish a diagnosis of PF with sagittal T1-weighted, T2-weighted, and short tau inversion recovery sequences. The sonographic appearances of PF were compared with MRI findings. Plantar fascia and heel pad thickness were also measured on both imaging modalities. Results. Compared with MRI, sonography showed 80% sensitivity and 88.5% specificity in assessing PF. A strong correlation was found between plantar fascia and fat pad thickness measurements done by sonography (P < .001; r = 0.854) and MRI (P < .001; r = 0.798). Compared with the asymptomatic volunteers, patients with PF had significant increases in plantar fascia and heel pad thicknesses, weight, and body mass index (P = .0001). Heel pad thickness was also significantly increased with pain duration (P = .021). Conclusions. Although MRI is the modality of choice in the morphologic assessment of different plantar fascia lesions, sonography can also serve as an effective tool and may substitute MRI in the diagnosis of PF.

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The objective is to investigate the effect of obesity and hepatosteatosis on the Doppler waveform pattern of the hepatic veins. B-mode and duplex Doppler sonography of the liver and the right hepatic vein was performed in 102 obese subjects and 84 healthy volunteers. The severity of fatty infiltration was graded as mild, moderate and severe. The flow pattern of the right hepatic vein was classified as triphasic, biphasic and monophasic. The Doppler flow pattern in the right hepatic vein was triphasic in 56 (55%), biphasic in 27 (26%) and monophasic in 19 (19%) obese patients, whereas it was triphasic in 83 (99%) and biphasic in 1 (1%) control subject, achieving a statistical significance (Mann-Whitney U-test, P<0.001). There was an inverse correlation between the sonographic grade of the hepatosteatosis and the phasicity of hepatic venous flow (r=-0.67, P<0.001). The hepatic vein pulsatility is significantly dampened in obese patients correlating with the grade of hepatosteatosis. The body habitus itself does not have an independent effect on hepatic venous waveform. The alteration in hepatic vein Doppler flow pattern in an obese population may suggest reduced vascular compliance in the liver because of fatty infiltration.

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Background: Pattern of fat distribution rather than obesity is of importance for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. The accurate measurement of total and regional fat mass requires sophisticated and often expensive methods that have limited applicability in the clinical setting. Objective: The aim of this study is to evaluate body fat distributions by ultrasound (US) as a gold standard method for measuring visceral, preperitoneal and subcutaneous fat layers and comparing with anthropometric results, and then to find the most reliable anthropometric measurement in childhood obesity. Materials and methods: Study group of 51 obese children (21 F, 30 M) (mean age7s.d.: 11.572.6 years) and control group of 33 non-obese children (17 F, 16 M) (mean age7s.d.: 12.272.7 years) were recruited for this study. Anthropometric measurements as body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), waist/hip ratio (WHR), triceps and subscapular skinfold thicknesses were taken from all the participants. Abdominal preperitoneal (P), subcutaneous (S) fat at their maximum (max) and minimum (min) thickness sites, visceral (V), triceps (TrUS) and subscapular (SsUS) fat thicknesses were also measured ultrasonographically. Results: In the obese group, BMI was significantly correlated with US measurements of fat thicknesses, except Pmin and SsUS, whereas in the control group, BMI was significantly correlated with all US fat measurements. The relation of US measurements with skinfold thickness and WC was more significant in the control than in the obese group. No relation between WHR and US fat thickness measurements was found in both groups. Multiple regression analysis, using V as the dependent variable and anthropometric parameters, gender and the group as the independent variables, revealed BMI was the best single predictor of V (R 2 : 0.53). Conclusion: This study suggests that the validity of the anthropometric skinfold thickness in the obese children is low. Despite the limitations reported in the literature, in our study, BMI provides the best estimate of body fat. WHR in children and adolescents is not a good index to show intra-abdominal fat deposition.