ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the important aspects of plaque biology that directly relate to plaque instability and its subsequent detection by nuclear imaging. The four sequential components of nuclear imaging are synthesis of a compound labelled with a radioactive isotope, injection and cellular uptake of the tracer, detection of the distribution of the tracer over time, and finally the conversion of the data into an image. The information gathered by the detectors can then be reconstructed by computer hardware and software to produce multiple cross-sectional images of the original radionuclide distribution. Qualitative analysis remains the most common form of analysis in clinical Positron emission tomography (PET) studies. A different approach to identifying vulnerable plaques is to image superimposed thrombi by targeting their subcomponents with radiolabelled compounds. PET has certain advantages over conventional gamma camera technology. Imaging technology for atherosclerosis has focused almost entirely on defining anatomical obstructions to flow.
