Lower Limb Ischaemia, Inflammation and Calcification (LIC) Study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Multi-modality imaging to determine the contribution of calcification and inflammation in lower limb arterial disease: An FDG and NaF PET / CT imaging study.
IRAS ID
136133
Contact name
Patrick Coughlin
Contact email
Research summary
At present approximately 5% of men over the age of 65 years have furring of the arteries (atherosclerosis) in the legs. This can cause a number of symptoms, commonly producing pains in the muscles of the legs on walking (known as claudication), but if there is a lot of atherosclerosis then the circulation can be so poor as to cause ulcers / gangrene within the feet. If not treated this can necessitate amputation of the leg. Patients with atherosclerosis within the legs may also have problems within the arteries of the heart or brain and as such this group of patients are 3-5 times more likely to have a heart attack or stroke. One of the reasons for patients being prescribed aspirin and statins is to try and reduce this risk.
The vascular imaging group at Addenbrookes hospital have developed novel techniques to assess how inflamed and artery is. It is felt that an artery that is inflamed is more at risk of causing a heart attack, stroke or worsening circulation to the legs. Such techniques have not been extensively investigated within the arteries of the leg and this research project aims to examine the arteries wihin the legs using these new techniques specifically with respect to how inflamed it is and allied to this how much calcium there is in the vessel itself (a further marker for poor outcomes).
Patients with varying degrees of atherosclerotic disease in the arteries of the legs will be asked to join the project. Each patient will undergo in depth assessment of the arteris.
This is a non-invasive test performed using a PET/CT scanner that is routinely used in every hospital to diagnose a number of conditions. The patient will undergo two PET/CT scans (one each on consecutive days) and a different chemical, known as a tracer, will be injected into an arm vein on each day. A more inflamed artery takes up more of the tracer injected and this can be seen and quantified using the images obtained from the PET/CT scanner. We can correlate these findings with the degree of heart disease a patient has and what the estimated risk of heart disease will be for each patient in the next ten years. Furthermore in a subgroup of patients already planned for an operation on their arteries, we will biopsy a piece of artery and compare the findings we see on the scans with what we observe under a microscope.REC name
East of England - Cambridge East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
13/EE/0337
Date of REC Opinion
19 Dec 2013
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion