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©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Correlation between thoracic aorta 18F-natrium fluoride uptake and cardiovascular risk
Francesco Fiz, Silvia Morbelli, Matteo Bauckneht, Giulia Ferrarazzo, Alberto Nieri, Gianmario Sambuceti, Nuclear Medicine, Department of Health Science, University of Genoa and IRCCS San Martino-IST, 16132 Genoa, Italy
Arnoldo Piccardo, Manlio Cabria, Nuclear Medicine Unit, Galliera Hospital, Mura delle Cappuccine 14, 16128 Genoa, Italy
Nathan Artom, Clinic of Internal Medicine 1, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Genoa School of Medicine, 16132 Genoa, Italy
Cecilia Marini, CNR Institute of Molecular Bioimaging and Physiology Milan, section of Genoa, c/o Nuclear Medicine, 16132 Genoa, Italy
Marco Canepa, Cardiovascular Unit, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Genoa, 16132 Genoa, Italy
Author contributions: Fiz F performed the retrospective analysis of PET/CT images data, literature search and drafted the manuscript; Fiz F and Morbelli S designed the study and given final approval of the version of the article to be published; Morbelli S, Bauckneht M, Ferrarazzo G, Nieri A and Artom N performed the VOI on the PET/CT images; Morbelli S, Piccardo A, Cabria M, Marini C, Canepa M and Sambuceti G made critical revisions related to important intellectual content of the manuscript; Bauckneht M and Ferrarazzo G drafted figures of the paper; all authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The Internal Review Board (Comitato Etico Regionale della Liguria) evaluated and approved this retrospective study.
Informed consent statement: Each patient, or their legal guardian, provided written informed consent. Images and data were anonymized before data analysis.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The study was supported by the "InterOmics Flagship Project" grant, afforded by the National Research Council (CNR-IBFM).
Data sharing statement: Statistical code and dataset are available from the corresponding author at his email address. All data are anonymized and there is no risk of patients’ identification.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Francesco Fiz, MD, Nuclear Medicine, Department of Health Science, University of Genoa and IRCCS San Martino-IST, Largo R. Benzi 10, 16132 Genoa, Italy. francesco.fiz.nm@gmail.com
Telephone: +39-10-5552027
Received: July 29, 2015
Peer-review started: July 31, 2015
First decision: November 6, 2015
Revised: November 24, 2015
Accepted: December 13, 2015
Article in press: December 14, 2015
Published online: January 28, 2016
Peer-review started: July 31, 2015
First decision: November 6, 2015
Revised: November 24, 2015
Accepted: December 13, 2015
Article in press: December 14, 2015
Published online: January 28, 2016
Core Tip
Core tip: We evaluated, in 78 patients who underwent whole body 18F-Natrium Fluoride (18F-NaF) positron emission tomography/computed tomography, the 18F-NaF uptake in different segments of thoracic aorta and within the myocardium, as a measure of ongoing molecular calcification. In particular, we tested the hypothesis of a correlation between thoracic aorta uptake and cardiovascular risk (CVR). We thus assessed 18F-NaF uptake (TBR) in different CVR groups (high, medium and low) and its correlation with absolute CVR value. TBR stratified the three CVR classes, mostly in the descending aortic segment and in the myocardium. Thoracic aorta uptake correlated with CVR and with myocardial uptake.