A PET/CT study followed 40 sufferers of heart attacks and just as many matched controls imaged with conventional coronary angiography and sodium fluoride PET/CT to gauge vulnerable plaques and see potential risk of heart attack.

Results of the study, published in The Lancet and written up in KQED Science, showed that 93 percent or 37 out of 40 people who had had a heart attack were found to have substantial sodium fluoride uptake in areas of plaque thought to be responsible for heart attack. In fact, uptake in these areas was 34 percent higher than elsewhere in the heart.