Molecular imaging can shoe the risk for abdominal aortic aneurysms

According to new research published in Journal of Nuclear Medicine the researchers have given a valuable insight to check the risk of rupture abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA). As per the experiment the imaging of the positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) shows that there are dense white blood cells in the outermost connective tissue in the vascular wall. It increases the C-reactive protein and also lead to loss of smooth muscle cells. This can be an indication to future AAA rupture. Audrey Courtois, PhD, the lead author of the study explains, “Our approach allows us—for the first time to our knowledge—to analyze spots of high 18F-FDG uptake and compare them to a distant inactive zone of the same aneurysm. We further compared these biopsies to fragments collected in patients with negative 18F-FDG uptake. This strategy allowed for the discrimination of biologic alterations associated with 18F-FDG uptake that would help identify relevant biologic markers predictive of rupture.”