Objective To explore the correlation between skeletal muscle fat content and insulin resistance(IR)in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus(T2DM),and to evaluate the diagnostic value of skeletal muscle fat quantitative parameters for IR.Methods During January 2018 to January 2021,150 T2DM patients as observation group(T2DM group)and 100 healthy subjects as control group(NC group)were selected.All subjects underwent magnetic resonance imaging quantitatively analyzed skeletal muscle fat content,including intermuscular fat(IMAT),adipose tissue beneath fascia(SFAT)and subcutaneous fat(SCAT).Receiver operating characteristic(ROC)curve was used to analyze the diagnostic value of skeletal muscle fat quantitative parameters for IR in T2DM patients.Results The levels of IMAT and SFAT were higher in T2DM group than those in NC group[(10.05±1.34)%vs(7.16±2.06)%,(3.64±0.54)%vs(3.40±0.75)%,P<0.05],while the level of SCAT was lower than in T2DM group than in NC group[(20.16±6.34)%vs(24.97±6.57)%,P<0.05].Pearson correlation analysis showed that IMAT and SFAT were positively correlated with HbA1c and HOMA-IR(P<0.05),while SCAT was negatively correlated with HbA1c and HOMA-IR(P<0.05).ROC curve analysis showed that the area under the curve of IMAT,SFAT,and SCAT for the diagnostic value of T2DM combined with IR were 0.716,0.667 and 0.736,with sensitivities of 75.4%,72.9%and 76.4%,and specificity of 71.4%,65.2%and 68.1%.Conclusion Skeletal muscle fat contentis associated with IR.The quantitative parameters of skeletal muscle fat have good diagnostic efficacy for T2DM complicated with IR.