New technique for detecting hard arteries

A radioactive agent developed in the 1960s for the purpose of testing for bone cancer can also be employed to image the dangerous build-up of calcium deposits in the arteries that could provoke strokes and heart attacks, according to a team of UK researchers.

The agent could help in diagnosing atherosclerosis, or the hardening of the arteries, and help develop new treatments to reverse the process, say the researchers from the University of Cambridge.

Patients were injected with sodium floride that contained a small amount of the radioactive agent, according to the study.

Scanning techniques such as positron emission tomography (PET) and computed tomography (CT) were used to successfully observe the condition of their arteries.

"Sodium fluoride is a simple and inexpensive radiotracer that should revolutionise our ability to detect dangerous calcium in the arteries of the heart and brain," says author Dr. James Rudd of the U of C.

"This will allow us to use current treatments more effectively, by giving them to those patients at highest risk. In addition, after further work, it may be possible to use this technique to test how well new medicines perform at preventing the development of atherosclerosis."

A paper on the discovery was published in the journal Nature Communications.