ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Cardiovasc. Med.
Sec. Cardiovascular Imaging
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcvm.2025.1598638
This article is part of the Research TopicInflammation and Infection Imaging with PET and SPECTView all 5 articles
Prognostic Value of 68Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT in Assessing Cardiac Involvement in Autoimmune Diseases: A Prospective Study
Provisionally accepted
- Peking Union Medical College Hospital (CAMS), Beijing, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background: This prospective study aimed to evaluate the prognostic value of 6868Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT imaging in assessing myocardial macrophage infiltration in patients with autoimmune diseases and its relationship with clinical outcomes, specifically all-cause mortality and cardiovascular rehospitalization. Methods: A total of 36 patients with cardiac involvement due to autoimmune diseases were enrolled. All underwent 68Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT imaging to assess left ventricular mononuclear macrophage infiltration. Clinical data, including myocardial biopsy results and left ventricular SUV values (LVmax and LVmean), were recorded. Prognostic thresholds were identified using ROC curve analysis, while Kaplan-Meier survival were used to analyze the relationship between myocardial macrophage activity and clinical outcomes. Results: Of the 36 patients, 9 died and 9 were rehospitalized for cardiovascular reasons. ROC analysis demonstrated that LVmax > 2.405 predicted all-cause mortality with an AUC of 0.96 (95% CI: 0.92–1.00, P < 0.0001), while LVmean > 1.36 predicted cardiovascular rehospitalization with an AUC of 0.87 (95% CI: 0.79–0.96, P < 0.0001).An LVmax > 2.405 was significantly associated with increased mortality, while an LVmean > 1.36 predicted cardiovascular rehospitalization. High 6868Ga-DOTATATE uptake thus strongly significantly correlated with adverse clinical outcomes, surpassing traditional markers such as ejection fraction and inflammatory biomarkers. Moreover, 68Ga-DOTATATE imaging results were more consistent with the patients' clinical conditions compared to myocardial biopsy, highlighting its superior diagnostic utility in assessing diffuse myocardial inflammation. Conclusion: 68Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT imaging offers a valuable, non-invasive, and quantitative method for assessing myocardial inflammation in autoimmune diseases. This technique shows potential for improving personalized treatment and prognosis by identifying patients at higher risk for adverse outcomes in autoimmune diseases.
Keywords: 68Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT, Myocardial Macrophage Infiltration, Autoimmune Diseases, Prognostic value, clinical outcomes
Received: 12 Apr 2025; Accepted: 15 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lin, Niu, Chen, Wang, Shi, Zhao, Liu, Wang, Fang and Huo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Ligang Fang, fanglgpumch@sina.com
Li Huo, huoli@pumch.cn
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.