From: Aunt Minnie: Should coronary artery calcium (CAC) scoring be a routine part of PET/CT stress testing for assessing an individual’s risk of heart disease? Yes, according to researchers from Utah who explained why in a Saturday presentation at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) 2019 meeting in New Orleans.

From: Aunt Minnie: Researchers have developed a new FDG-PET/CT-based approach to better monitor the efficacy of immunotherapy for patients with metastatic melanoma, according to a study published in the March issue of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine. The immunotherapy treatment involves ipilimumab, a checkpoint inhibitor that allows the body’s immune system to attack cancer cells.

From: Aunt Minnie: Data from a combination of FDG-PET and functional MRI (fMRI) scans revealed the extent to which alcohol intake can alter patterns of energy use and neuronal activity in the brain, according to an article published online February 11 in Nature Communications. Researchers from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) measured glucose metabolism on brain FDG-PET scans and blood oxygenation levels on fMRI scans of 68 individuals who consumed different amounts of alcohol.

From: SNMMI: Physicians may soon have a new way to measure the efficacy or failure of hormone therapy for breast cancer patients, according to new research published in the February issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. Researchers report that positron emission tomography (PET) imaging with 18F-fluorofuranylnorprogesterone (18F-FFNP) has been found to successfully measure changes in progesterone receptor (PR) levels resulting from a short-course estrogen treatment, also known as an estradiol challenge.

From: Aunt Minnie: Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine have developed a PET imaging technique using a carbon-11-based radiotracer that confirmed an association between post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome (PTLDS) and widespread inflammation in the brain. The findings could lead to more effective treatment plans for people who experience long-term fatigue, pain, sleep disruption, and “brain fog” associated with PTLDS.