Table 2.

Intraplaque ¹⁸Fluorodeoxyglucose uptake and target-to-blood pool ratios.

Patient	Plaque			Inferior vena cava
	SUVmax	SUVmean	TBR	SUVmax	SUVmean
Patient 1	3.55	2.13	1.60	2.8	1.33
Patient 2	3.13	1.99	1.81	2.5	1.10
Patient 3	10.73	4.54	1.54	6.2	2.95
Patient 4	2.30	1.65	1.04	3.7	1.58
Patient 5	4.67	2.32	2.68	3.5	0.87
Patient 6	1.73	1.09	1.17	1.8	0.93
Patient 7	3.06	2.08	1.10	3.2	1.88
Patient 8	2.82	1.93	1.27	2.5	1.52
Patient 9	2.92	1.88	1.12	3.7	1.68
Patient 10	3.11	1.86	1.24	3.0	1.50
Patient 11	3.32	1.85	2.02	3.7	0.92
Patient 12	3.50	1.96	1.32	4.5	1.48

The plaque TBR expresses local ¹⁸Fluorodeoxyglucose uptake in relation to SUV_mean in the rest of the blood pool. TBR is calculated according to the method presented by Rudd 2007 and Metha 2012. First the mean SUV value for the entire plaque was calculated based on assessment of SUV in each region of interest (ROI) in each plaque slice. Then the mean SUV for the blood pool was calculated based on SUV from six points in the venous blood pool. Finally, TBR was calculated as follows: TBR = (plaque SUV_mean)/(venous blood pool SUV_mean).

SUV standard uptake value, TBR target-to-blood pool ratio.