-
Clinical rheumatology · May 2013
Case ReportsEarly recognition of aortitis of the aorta ascendens with ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT: syphilitic?
- H Balink, A Spoorenberg, P M Houtman, A Brandenburg, and H J Verberne.
- Department of Nuclear Medicine, Medical Center Leeuwarden, PO Box 850, 8901 BR Leeuwarden, The Netherlands. hans.balink@znb.nl
- Clin. Rheumatol. 2013 May 1; 32 (5): 705-9.
AbstractWe present the case of a 42-year-old woman known with a human leukocyte antigen B27 positive ankylosing spondylitis. Despite treatment with a tumor necrosis factor blocking agent, the patient was not pain free and inflammation markers remained elevated. An (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography ((18)F-FDG PET/CT) was performed in an attempt to exclude possible other inflammatory processes. The (18)F-FDG PET/CT revealed increased metabolic activity in the ascending aortic wall, which appeared unexpectedly related to late syphilis. Based on this case and existing literature on this subject, we come to the conclusion that (18)F-FDG PET/CT can help in an early establishment of syphilitic aortitis before the possible life-threatening sequelae of syphilitic aortitis occur.
Notes
Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
- Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as
*italics*,_underline_or**bold**. - Superscript can be denoted by
<sup>text</sup>and subscript<sub>text</sub>. - Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines
1. 2. 3., hyphens-or asterisks*. - Links can be included with:
[my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com) - Images can be included with:
 - For footnotes use
[^1](This is a footnote.)inline. - Or use an inline reference
[^1]to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document[^1]: This is a long footnote..