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Arterial and fat tissue inflammation are highly correlated : a prospective 18F-FDG PET/CT study

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European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

There is evidence that the link between obesity and cardiovascular disease might relate to inflammation in both fat tissue and the arterial wall. 18F-FDG uptake on PET is a surrogate marker of vessel wall inflammation. The aim of the study was to measure FDG uptake in both regions using PET and identify links between adipose and arterial inflammation.

Methods

Included in the study were 173 cardiovascular patients who were prospectively imaged with FDG PET/CT. Arterial FDG uptake was measured in the carotid arteries and ascending aorta. The same was done in fat tissue in the neck, the presternal region (both subcutaneous) and the pericardium. FDG uptake was quantified as average maximal target-to-background ratio (meanTBRmax). Multivariate regression analyses were performed to identify significant associations between arterial and adipose tissue FDG uptake and clinical variables as given by the standardized correlation coefficient (β).

Results

FDG uptake values in all fat tissue regions were highly predictive of vascular FDG uptake in both the carotids (β 0.262, p < 0.0001, in the neck subcutaneous region) and aorta (β 0.22, p = 0.008, in the chest pericardial region; β 0.193, p = 0.019, in the chest subcutaneous region). Obesity was significantly associated with elevated FDG uptake in adipose tissue (β 0.470, p < 0.0001, in the neck subcutaneous region; β 0.619, p = 0.028, in the chest subcutaneous region; β 0.978, p = 0.035, in the chest pericardial region).

Conclusion

FDG uptake in diverse fat tissue regions was significantly associated with arterial FDG uptake, a reasonable surrogate of inflammation. Increasing body weight significantly predicted the level of fatty inflammation. FDG PET therefore provides imaging evidence of an inflammatory link between fat tissue and the vasculature in patients with cardiovascular disease.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Ash Rafique, RT, BS, CNMT, for his assistance with image acquisition. Work on this study was partly supported by the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (J.H.F.R.). Partial support was provided by: NIH/NHLBI R01 HL071021 (Z.A.F.), NIH/NHLBI R01 HL078667 (Z.A.F. and M.E.F.), and NIH/NCATS CTSA UL1TR000067 (Imaging Core) (Z.A.F.).

Conflicts of interest

None.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Translational and Molecular Imaging Institute, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, One Gustave L. Levy Place, P. O. Box 1234, New York, NY, 10029, USA

    Jan Bucerius, Venkatesh Mani, Stephanie Wong, Colin Moncrieff, David Izquierdo-Garcia & Zahi A. Fayad

  2. Department of Radiology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA

    Jan Bucerius, Venkatesh Mani, Stephanie Wong, Colin Moncrieff, David Izquierdo-Garcia & Zahi A. Fayad

  3. Department of Nuclear Medicine, Maastricht University Medical Center, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Jan Bucerius

  4. Cardiovascular Research Institute Maastricht (CARIM), Maastricht University Medical Center, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Jan Bucerius

  5. Department of Nuclear Medicine, University Hospital RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany

    Jan Bucerius

  6. Department of Cardiology, Zena and Michael A. Weiner Cardiovascular Institute and Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Cardiovascular Health Center, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA

    Venkatesh Mani, Valentin Fuster, Michael E. Farkouh & Zahi A. Fayad

  7. Division of Nuclear Medicine, Department of Radiology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA

    Josef Machac

  8. The Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC), Madrid, Spain

    Valentin Fuster

  9. Cardiovascular Imaging Clinical Trials Unit, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA

    Michael E. Farkouh

  10. Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    James H. F. Rudd

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  1. Jan Bucerius
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  2. Venkatesh Mani
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  3. Stephanie Wong
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  9. James H. F. Rudd
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zahi A. Fayad.

Additional information

James H. F. Rudd and Zahi A. Fayad contributed equally to this work and are joint senior authors.

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Bucerius, J., Mani, V., Wong, S. et al. Arterial and fat tissue inflammation are highly correlated : a prospective 18F-FDG PET/CT study. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 41, 934–945 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-013-2653-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-013-2653-y

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