@article {Serfling3359, author = {Sebastian Serfling and Wolfgang Thaiss and Anne Wasserloos and Leo Rasche and Martin Kort{\"u}m and Sabrina Kraus and Takahiro Higuchi and Steven Rowe and Malte Kircher and Andreas Buck and Hermann Einsele and Ambros Beer and Constantin Lapa and Rudolf Werner}, title = {Non-Invasive Measurement of Increased Vessel Wall Inflammation by [18F]FDG PET/CT in Patients with Multiple Myeloma upon Allogeneic Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation}, volume = {63}, number = {supplement 2}, pages = {3359--3359}, year = {2022}, publisher = {Society of Nuclear Medicine}, abstract = {3359 Introduction: In patients with multiple myeloma (MM), allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (allo-HCT) is used as a salvage approach, but is also associated with cardiovascular events during follow-up. Here, we investigated whether increased vessel wall inflammation upon allo-HCT can be monitored by [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET/CT.Methods: 15 MM patients underwent [18F]FDG before and three months after allo-HCT. By analyzing 8 vessel segments per patient, a non-invasive semi-quantitative read-out of the entire vasculature was conducted. Using healthy lung uptake as reference, correlative indices between derived vessel-to-lung ratios (VLR) and uptake from organs of hematopoietic activation (bone marrow [BM]) were determined. A central review investigated baseline and follow-up scans, which provided the delta VLR between both scans.Results: For all vessels, the pre-therapeutic VLR was 3.04{\textpm}0.64 (95\%CI, 2.68-3.39) and correlated with uptake derived from BM (R=0.67, P\<0.01). After HCT, TBR of all investigated vessel segments increased by 20.1\% to 3.64{\textpm}0.72 (95\%CI, 3.24-4.05; P=0.0003 vs. pre-therapeutic VLR). Those findings were primarily driven by an increase of VLR in the abdominal (30.2\%, P=0.001) and thoracic aorta (aortic arch, 28.4\%; ascending aorta, 26\%; descending aorta, 18.5\%; P\<0.05 for all). Conclusions: Allo-HCT in MM patients was associated with increased vessel wall uptake, in particular in the thoracic and abdominal aorta. Our study suggests that [18F]FDG PET/CT may be a helpful tool to determine the vessel wall inflammation in MM patients upon allo-HCT.}, issn = {0161-5505}, URL = {https://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/63/supplement_2/3359}, eprint = {https://jnm.snmjournals.org/content}, journal = {Journal of Nuclear Medicine} }