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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2021 Sep 21.
Published in final edited form as: Cardiovasc Innov Appl. 2019 Apr;4(1):13–24. doi: 10.15212/cvia.2019.0004

Figure 3: 18F-NaF for non-invasive characterization of coronary plaques.

Figure 3:

NaF binds to areas of micro- and macro-calcification within the necrotic core of vascular plaques (row “a”). This property property can be exploited to provide non-invasive, in vivo characterization of coronary plaques with 18F-NaF PET (row “d”). 18F-NaF-avid plaques may be useful for risk stratification and the technique is currently the subject of an ongoing clinical trial. Rows “b” and “c” refer to ex vivo and animal studies, not applicable to patient care. Figure reproduced from (22), licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).