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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2022 May 2.
Published in final edited form as: J Nucl Cardiol. 2020 Mar 13;28(5):2215–2219. doi: 10.1007/s12350-020-02058-8

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Schematic of the relationship between interface area and plaque vulnerability. Plaque vulnerability is difficult to predict. Patients with and without traditional risk factors suffer heart attacks. The relationship between coronary artery calcification (CAC) volume is also unreliable. Recent data suggests that 18F-NaF PET imaging and measurements of calcium (Ca) density may be more reflective of plaque vulnerability because they measure the interface area between hard and soft plaque. Thus, plaques with spotty micro-calcification, which have high 18F-NaF signal and low density calcium may be most vulnerable to rupture.