Recent Advances in Cardiovascular Imaging for Discovering Monosodium Urate Crystals

Abstract

Coronary crystals, such as cholesterol crystals and calcifications, likely exacerbate chronic vascular inflammation via macrophage inflammasome activation, and resultant plaque progression. Likewise, monosodium urate is involved in local inflammation at the culprit site of an acute gouty flare. Relatively, little is known about the evidence of monosodium urate depositions in a human heart because of a lack of imaging that allows to visualize an individual monosodium urate crystal with thickness of 1 to 2 µm. This paper will review recent advances in studies with novel imaging approaches for coronary monosodium urate crystals in human patients.