Kwiecinski J, et al. - Given that using coronary ¹⁸F-sodium fluoride (¹⁸F-NaF) PET, ruptured plaques in patients with recent myocardial infarction are identified in addition to localization to atherosclerotic lesions with active calcification and that most studies to date have performed the PET acquisition 1 h after injection, researchers examined how delayed PET performed 3 h after injection impact image quality and uptake measurements. Findings revealed decreased blood-pool activity on delayed imaging. This facilitates the assessment of ¹⁸F-NaF uptake in coronary plaques. In delayed imaging, an increase in the median target-to-background (TBR) ratio by 80% was observed which led to the detection of more plaques with significant uptake than are detected using the standard 1-h protocol. Findings thereby suggest a possibility for achieving improved detection of ¹⁸F-NaF uptake in coronary artery plaques with a greater than 1-h delay