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Perivascular fat — an unheralded informant of coronary inflammation

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A novel image-analysis method using standard CT imaging demonstrates that changes in the CT signal of coronary perivascular adipose tissue are associated with the degree of inflammation in adjacent coronary plaques. This exciting development might become a useful adjuvant clinical tool, although further validation and prospective outcome studies are required.

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Acknowledgements

M.R.D. is supported by the British Heart Foundation (FS/14/78/31020), and is the recipient of the Sir Jules Thorn Award for Biomedical Research 2015. Z.A.F. is supported by NIH grants P01 HL131478, R01 HL071021, R01 HL128056, R01 HL135878, and R01 EB009638.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Marc R. Dweck is at the Centre for Cardiovascular Science, University of Edinburgh, Little France Crescent, Edinburgh, EH16 4SB, UK.,

    Marc R. Dweck

  2. Zahi A. Fayad is at the Translational and Molecular Imaging Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, 1470 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10029, USA.,

    Zahi A. Fayad

Authors
  1. Marc R. Dweck
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  2. Zahi A. Fayad
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Correspondence to Zahi A. Fayad.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Dweck, M., Fayad, Z. Perivascular fat — an unheralded informant of coronary inflammation. Nat Rev Cardiol 14, 573–574 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrcardio.2017.127

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