Published in:
01-12-2017 | Brief Report
F-18 sodium fluoride PET/CT does not effectively image myocardial inflammation due to suspected cardiac sarcoidosis
Published in: Journal of Nuclear Cardiology | Issue 6/2017
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Background
Sarcoidosis is an inflammatory disorder of unknown etiology that can involve the heart. While effective in imaging cardiac sarcoidosis, F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET/CT often shows non-specific myocardial uptake. F-18 sodium fluoride (NaF) has been used to image inflammation in coronary artery plaques and has low background myocardial uptake. Here, we evaluated whether F-18 NaF can image myocardial inflammation due to clinically suspected cardiac sarcoidosis.
Patients and Methods
We performed a single institution pilot study testing if F-18 NaF PET/CT can detect myocardial inflammation in patients with suspected cardiac sarcoidosis. Patients underwent cardiac PET/CT with F-18 FDG as part of their routine care and subsequently received an F-18 NaF PET/CT scan.
Results
Three patients underwent F-18 FDG and F-18 NaF imaging. In all patients, there was F-18 FDG uptake consistent with cardiac sarcoidosis. The F-18 NaF PET/CT scans showed no myocardial uptake.
Conclusions
In this small preliminary study, PET/CT scan using F-18 NaF does not appear to detect myocardial inflammation caused by suspected cardiac sarcoidosis.