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Assessment of Inflammation in Non-calcified Artery Plaques with Dynamic 18F-FDG-PET/CT: CT Alone, Does-It Detect the Vulnerable Plaque?

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Book cover Bioinformatics and Biomedical Engineering (IWBBIO 2022)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNBI,volume 13346))

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Abstract

Background: The goal of this work was to measure artery inflammation in aged volunteers with atherosclerosis using computed tomography (CT) and positron emission tomography (PET) with 18F-FDG. The artery plaques are composed of lipid rich fibrous tissue and foamy macrophages and are the most vulnerable for detachment. Such plaques can be differentiated by their density with CT imaging. Methods: A healthy artery (NAR) was considered with no plaque on a CT images and with density between 51 and 130 Hounsfield Units (HU). A non-calcified plaque (NCP) and a calcified plaque (CP) were respectively identified as having a density ≤ 50 HU and >130 HU. In the calcified arteries, the calcification area divided by the artery area (RCA) and the calcification score (ACS) were classified with Hierarchical K-means algorithm into 4 clusters and were correlated with the metabolic rate of 18F-FDG (MRG). Results: we found MRG statistically higher in NCP in comparison to NAR and CP in subjects without medication (P < 0.05). In subjects under-medication, NCP values were found the lowest. MRG of NCP in non-medication subjects was statistically significantly different from CP with small area but not from CP with large areas (P = 0.40). In under-medication subjects, no statistical differences were found between NCP and CP independently of plaque area and density. Conclusion: Since the low-density plaque was reported as the vulnerable plaque, based on the present work, this latter can be simply identified on CT images with intensity between 30 HU and 50 HU.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nuclear Medicine and Radiobiology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, 3001, 12th Avenue North, Sherbrooke, QC, J1H5N4, Canada

    Mamdouh S. Al-enezi, Éric Turcotte & M’hamed Bentourkia

  2. Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Faculty of Applied Medical Science, University of Hail, Hail, Saudi Arabia

    Mamdouh S. Al-enezi

  3. Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, 3001, 12th Avenue North, Sherbrooke, QC, J1H5N4, Canada

    Abdelouahed Khalil & Tamas Fulop

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  1. Mamdouh S. Al-enezi
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  3. Tamas Fulop
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Correspondence to M’hamed Bentourkia .

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  1. Marcelina Siebold Guest Relations Dept., University of Granada, Granada, Spain

    Ignacio Rojas

  2. Faculty of Sciences, University of Granada, Granada, Spain

    Olga Valenzuela

  3. ETSIIT. CITIC-UGR, University of Granada, Granada, Spain

    Fernando Rojas

  4. ETSIIT, University of Granada, Granada, Spain

    Luis Javier Herrera

  5. University of Granada, Granada, Spain

    Francisco Ortuño

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Al-enezi, M.S., Khalil, A., Fulop, T., Turcotte, É., Bentourkia, M. (2022). Assessment of Inflammation in Non-calcified Artery Plaques with Dynamic 18F-FDG-PET/CT: CT Alone, Does-It Detect the Vulnerable Plaque?. In: Rojas, I., Valenzuela, O., Rojas, F., Herrera, L.J., Ortuño, F. (eds) Bioinformatics and Biomedical Engineering. IWBBIO 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 13346. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07704-3_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07704-3_15

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