Total-body PET imaging takes a look at long COVID: Study

PET imaging usually uses short-lived radioactive tracers to measure metabolic activity inside the body. Conventional PET can only look at a single organ or a section of the body at a time. The uEXPLORER PET scanner developed at UC Davis can image the entire body at the same time, giving a much more detailed picture of what is going on in the body.

Omidvari will collaborate with CellSight Technologies Inc. of San Francisco to use a tracer called 18F-AraG, which specifically tags activated T cells. Using dynamic total-body PET imaging and sophisticated modeling, she aims to see how activated T cells collect in different organs at different times, where blood vessel damage is occurring, and whether these processes are related to each other.

“If we can separate the vascular damage from the presence of activated T cells in tissue, we should be able to get a much better picture of what’s going on,” Omidvari said.

The team will also check blood samples for markers for inflammation and immune activation that correlate with PET imaging data.

The study will work with patients from UCSF’s long COVID program (LIINC - Long-term Impact of Infection with Novel Coronavirus) who will be scanned at baseline, four and eight months. People who have fully recovered from COVID-19 and have no remaining symptoms will be scanned as controls.