PET/CT 

The Quarterly Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging 2006 March;50(1):53-60

Copyright © 2006 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

PET/CT for atherosclerotic plaque imaging

Ben-Haim S. ^{1, 2}, Israel O. ^{2, 3}

¹ Department of Nuclear Medicine Carmel Medical Center, Haifa, Israel 2 B. Rapaport Faculty of Medicine Technion Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel 3 Department of Nuclear Medicine Rambam Medical Center, Haifa, Israel

Atherosclerosis is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the world. Rupture of atherosclerotic plaques and thrombi formation are the primary mechanisms of myocardial infarction or cerebrovascular accident. Angiography is considered to represent the gold standard technique for imaging of the arterial lumen. However, in recent years it has been realized that the primary determinant of the atherosclerotic plaque stability is the composition of the plaque and other imaging modalities have been suggested. The purpose of this review is to briefly summarize the knowledge accumulated to present date regarding the potential role of fluodeoxyglucose imaging in the assessment of atherosclerosis and to compare this modality to additional available imaging approaches for the detection of vulnerable plaques.