TY - JOUR T1 - Assessment of Physiologic Intracranial Calcification in Healthy Adults Using <sup>18</sup>F-NaF PET/CT JF - Journal of Nuclear Medicine JO - J Nucl Med SP - 267 LP - 271 DO - 10.2967/jnumed.118.213678 VL - 60 IS - 2 AU - Abdullah Al-Zaghal AU - Siavash Mehdizadeh Seraj AU - Thomas J. Werner AU - Oke Gerke AU - Poul F. Høilund-Carlsen AU - Abass Alavi Y1 - 2019/02/01 UR - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/60/2/267.abstract N2 - The aim of this research study was to determine the role of 18F-sodium fluoride (18F-NaF) PET/CT imaging in the assessment of physiologic molecular calcification in the intracranial structures. We also examined the association of 18F-NaF accumulation with age as well as Hounsfield unit (HU) in certain anatomic sites that are known to calcify with normal aging. Methods: A total of 78 healthy subjects from the Cardiovascular Molecular Calcification Assessed by 18F-NaF PET/CT (CAMONA) clinical trial (38 women and 40 men) were included in this retrospective study. The mean age was 45.28 ± 14.15 y (age range, 21–75 y). SUVmean was used to measure 18F-NaF accumulation in the choroid plexus and epithalamus (pineal gland and habenula). Maximum HU was also measured for each region of interest. Correlation analysis was conducted to assess the association between parameters. Results: Mean SUVmean was 0.42 ± 0.26 in the right choroid plexus, 0.39 ± 25 in the left choroid plexus, and 0.23 ± 0.08 in the epithalamus. Significant positive correlations were present between 18F-NaF uptake and age in the right choroid plexus (r = 0.61, P &lt; 0.0001), left choroid plexus (r = 0.63, P &lt; 0.0001), and epithalamus (r = 0.36, P = 0.001). 18F-NaF uptake significantly correlated with HU in the right choroid plexus (r = 0.52, P &lt; 0.0001), left choroid plexus (r = 0.57, P &lt; 0.0001), and epithalamus (r = 0.25, P = 0.03). Conclusion: 18F-NaF could be used in the assessment of physiologic calcification in several intracranial structures. We report significant associations between 18F-NaF uptake and aging as well as HU in the calcified choroid plexus and epithalamus. Our findings further support the growing interest to use 18F-NaF for detecting extraosseous, molecular calcification, and this powerful probe has potential applications in the evaluation of various age-related, neurodegenerative brain processes. ER -