FIGURE 2.

PET metabolic imaging of atherosclerosis. (A) Examples of ¹⁸F-FMISO and ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT in patient with carotid artery atherosclerosis demonstrate uptake of both tracers in left carotid artery plaque (arrows). Graph shows that ¹⁸F-FMISO uptake correlates with ¹⁸F-FDG uptake. (B) Examples of ¹¹C-acetate PET/CT of aorta in patients receiving whole-body scans for oncologic indications. Images from patient 1 indicate ¹¹C-acetate uptake in aortic region without calcified plaques, whereas images from patient 2 demonstrate colocalization of ¹¹C-acetate uptake with aortic calcifications (arrows point to areas of arterial ¹¹C-acetate uptake). (C) Examples of ¹¹C-choline PET/CT of aortic arch in men receiving whole-body scans for assessment of prostate cancer. Colocalization of ¹¹C-choline uptake with aortic calcifications is observed in patient 2 but not in patient 1 (arrows indicate areas of aortic arch calcification). MaxTBR = maximum target-to-background ratio. (Reprinted with permission of (27,30,37).)