Brown fat depots in adult humans remain static in their locations on PET/CT despite changes in seasonality (original) (raw)

Active brown adipose tissue (BAT) in humans has been demonstrated through use of positron emission tomography with 2-deoxy-2-(fluorine-18) fluoro-D-glucose integrated with computed tomography ((18)F-FDG PET/CT) scans. The aim of our study was to determine whether active human BAT depots shown on (18)F-FDG PET/CT scans remain static in their location over time. This was a retrospective study. Adult human subjects (n = 15) who had had (18)F-FDG PET/CT imaging (n = 38 scans in total) for clinical reasons were included on the basis of (18)F-FDG uptake patterns consistent with BAT activity. For each subject, (18)F-FDG BAT uptake pattern on serial (18)F-FDG PET/CT images was compared to an index (18)F-FDG PET/CT image with the largest demonstrable BAT volume. Object-based colocalization was expressed as Mander's correlation coefficient (where 1 = 100% overlap, 0 = no overlap). Distribution of (18)F-FDG BAT activity over time and across multiple (18)F-FDG BAT scans was equivalent in 60...