PET scans pick up large vessel vasculitis

Using a specialised PET scan can help diagnose large vessel vasculitis, particularly in patients who fail to meet American College of Rheumatology diagnostic criteria, a small Australian study suggests.
The scan that uses radioactive glucose can also monitor disease activity, identify occult sites of large vessel inflammation and titrate doses of prednisolone in selected cases, the authors report in the International Journal of Rheumatic Diseases.
The research team, led by rheumatologist Professor Catherine Hill, carried out an audit of 45 patients at the Royal Adelaide Hospital between 2010 and 2015 who had a fluorine-18-labelled deoxyglucose (FDG)-PET scan and had the term ‘vasculitis’ in the imaging request.
Six patients, who did not meet the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) 1990 criteria for giant cell arteritis or Takayasu’s arteritis, were diagnosed with unclassified large vessel vasculitis because of the FDG-PET scan.