Ultrasound techniques applied to body fat measurement in male and female athletes.

Context: For athletes in disciplines with weight categories, it is important to assess body composition and weight fluctuations.

Objective: To evaluate the accuracy of measuring body fat percentage with a portable ultrasound device possessing high accuracy and reliability versus fan-beam, dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA).

Design: Cross-validation study.

Setting: Research laboratory.

Patients Or Other Participants: A total of 93 athletes (24 women, 69 men), aged 23.5 +/- 3.7 years, with body mass index = 24.0 +/- 4.2 and body fat percentage via DEXA = 9.41 +/- 8.1 participated. All participants were elite athletes selected from the Institut National des Sports et de l'Education Physique. These participants practiced a variety of weight-category sports.

Main Outcome Measure(s): We measured body fat and body fat percentage using an ultrasound technique associated with anthropometric values and the DEXA reference technique. Cross-validation between the ultrasound technique and DEXA was then performed.

Results: Ultrasound estimates of body fat percentage were correlated closely with those of DEXA in both females (r = 0.97, standard error of the estimate = 1.79) and males (r = 0.98, standard error of the estimate = 0.96). The ultrasound technique in both sexes had a low total error (0.93). The 95% limit of agreement was -0.06 +/- 1.2 for all athletes and did not show an overprediction or underprediction bias. We developed a new model to produce body fat estimates with ultrasound and anthropometric dimensions.

Conclusions: The limits of agreement with the ultrasound technique compared with DEXA measurements were very good. Consequently, the use of a portable ultrasound device produced accurate body fat and body fat percentage estimates in relation to the fan-beam DEXA technique.