Right Ventricular Lipomatosis: A postmortem study

Abstract

Introduction: The adipose tissue in the right ventricle is frequently found during forensic autopsies. However, the pathological significance of right ventricular lipomatosis was not well studied in the available literature. This study aims to study identify the relationship between right ventricular lipomatosis and sociodemographic factors, BMI, and waist circumferenceMethods: Assessment of the fatty infiltration and fibrosis was performed by two pathologists who read all specimens separately. The average of the two values was taken for analysis.Results: A total of 100 decedents were examined in this study, of which 70 were male,76 were Caucasians thirteen were black, nine were Asian, and two were Native American. Among the population 76 were older than 30. Seventy-one out of a hundred recorded a BMI of more than 25, and 63 decedents had a normal waist circumference. Fat infiltration of the anterior wall and lateral wall and average fat infiltration of the right ventricle showed significant association with the female sex and the Caucasian population at a 95% confidence interval. Neither cause of death, past medical history, nor fibrosis of the right ventricle walls showed significant association with the fat infiltration of the right ventricle. Yet, age above 30 years and body mass index over 25 showed a significant association in the fat infiltration of the posterior wall (p-value < 0.05). At the same time, higher waist circumference was significantly associated with the average right ventricular fat infiltration (p-value < 0.05).Conclusion: Right ventricular lipomatosis is significantly associated with BMI and waist circumference in our study. At the same time, it was positively correlated with age, sex, and race.