Upsampling from aorta and aortic branches: PET/CT hybrid imaging identified 18F-FDG hypermetabolism in inflamed temporal and occipital arteries.

Temporal arteries are typically below detectable levels of PET scanners, which repeatedly showed to be limiting in finding increased F-FDG accumulation even in histologically proven cases of giant cell arteritis. In 2010, Gaemperli and coworkers showed metabolic active inflammation in temporal arteries in an experimental study using PET with [C]-PK11195 combined with CT angiography. Herein, we present the case where an increased accumulation of routinely used tracer F-FDG can be identified directly in temporal and occipital arteries and even in smaller branches using a common hybrid PET/CT scanner if a brain acquisition protocol is applied.