Eva Joppová, Ingrid Schusterová, Alžbeta Tohátyová, Milan Kuchta, Denisa Strömplová
In the recent years the prevalence of obesity and metabolic syndrome in children has shown an alarmingly increasing trend. This phenomenon and its causes and consequences have become a topic of interest in numerous scientific publications. Based on this trend the improvements in diagnostic tools for detecting the early, preclinical phase of the atherosclerotic process represent a great challenge in children and adolescents. In parallel, our knowledge on the relationships between the measured markers of preclinical atherosclerosis on one hand, and anthropometric, clinical and laboratory parameters on the other, is gradually expanding. As a result, both the epicardial fat tissue thickness assessed by echocardiography, as well as the carotid intima-media thickness measured by ultrasound, may serve (in addition to other new risk factors of atherosclerosis) as independent predictors of the presence of subclinical atherosclerosis and elevated future cardiovascular risk in children and adolescents with excessive visceral obesity.