The Relationship of Central Obesity to the Risk of Complicated Diverticulitis

Background: Predictive factors of severe diverticulitis are known to be sex, obesity, immunodeficiency and old age. However, the association between obesity and complicated diverticulitis is yet to be defined. We conducted the present study to clarify the association of central obesity with the risk of complicated diverticulitis.
Methods: A total of 117 patients were selected, who were diagnosed with colonic diverticulitis by abdominal CT from January 2005 to May 2007 at the authors’ institution.
For measuring obesity, body mass index (BMI) was calculated and the visceral fat area (VFA), subcutaneous fat area (SFA), total fat area (TFA) and abdominal circumference (AC) were determined from CT images. All parameters were analyzed using univariate statistics and multivariate logistic regression models.
Results: Out of the 117 patients with colonic diverticulitis,111 (94.9%) cases involved the proximal colon. In 30patients with complicated diverticulitis, 21 cases involved abscess formations and 9 cases showed perforated diverticulitis.
Univariate analysis identified age, male sex, VFA, VFA/TFA and AC as risk factors associated with complicated diverticulitis (P < 0.05). However, after adjusting for age and sex, none of the parameters showed increased risk for complicated diverticulitis.
Conclusions: Central obesity may not be a risk factor for increasing the risk of complicated colon diverticulitis in the Korean population.