Relationship between body mass index and pancreas volume in Japanese people.

Context: The volume of the pancreas increases with obesity.

Objective: This study was aimed to explore the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and pancreas volume in Japanese.

Methods: The pancreas volume was examined in a total of 103 (60 men and 43 women) Japanese adults who had undergone abdominal computed tomography (CT) scan. The pancreas was outlined by hand in each CT image and the pancreas volume was computed by summing the product of pancreas area of each image and the CT section thickness.

Results: There was a significant positive correlation between BMI and pancreas volume (r = 0.41, P <0.001). This relationship was expressed by the following equation: y = 23.8 + 2.48x, where y is pancreas volume (cm3) and x is BMI.

Conclusions: There is a positive correlation between BMI and pancreas volume in Japanese and this relationship is similar to that in Caucasians. This information will be useful to estimate the impact of obesity on pancreas volume in Japanese and for comparison among different ethnicities.