Objective: Type 2 diabetes is accompanied by premature atherosclerosis and arterial stiffness. The underlying association remains incompletely understood. The possible relationship between subclinical arterial inflammation assessed by (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) and arterial stiffness was investigated in patients with early type 2 diabetes.
Research design and methods: Patients with type 2 diabetes (n = 44), without cardiovascular disease and any type of antidiabetic medication, were studied (median age 63 years [interquartile range 54-66], men:women 27:17). Arterial inflammation was quantified as the FDG uptake maximal standardized uptake value (SUVmax). SUVmax was corrected for the prescan glucose level. A target-to-background ratio (TBR) was calculated by dividing the SUVmax of the arteries by the SUVmean of the caval veins (blood pool). TBRs were calculated for four individual segments (carotid arteries, ascending aorta and aortic arch, descending and abdominal aorta, and iliac and femoral arteries) and averaged for the total aortic tree (meanTBR). Arterial stiffness was assessed as central systolic blood pressure (cSBP), carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV), and augmentation index (AIx).
Results: The meanTBR was significantly associated with PWV (R = 0.47, P = 0.001) and cSBP (R = 0.45, P = 0.003) but not with AIx. TBR of each separate segment was also significantly associated with PWV and cSBP. In a multiple linear regression model including age, sex, BMI, hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), hs-CRP, cholesterol, cSBP, and PWV, PWV was the strongest determinant of meanTBR.
Conclusions: In patients with type 2 diabetes, FDG-PET/CT-imaged subclinical arterial inflammation is positively associated with determinants of arterial stiffness.
Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02015299.
© 2016 by the American Diabetes Association. Readers may use this article as long as the work is properly cited, the use is educational and not for profit, and the work is not altered.