The past two decades have witnessed a radical change in the way we approach the diagnosis and treatment of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Once considered a simple lipid accumulation disorder, CVD is now known to be a complex, systemic disease arising from the interplay of several pathological processes taking place within the vessel wall, the hematopoietic system, and ischemic organs. This knowledge has opened the door for the development and validation of a plethora of novel diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to further reduce cardiovascular risk on top of the current standard of care.

In this dynamic and ever-evolving landscape, quantitative imaging techniques have positioned themselves as powerful tools for the longitudinal, non-invasive assessment of CVD burden and activity in both the clinical and preclinical arena.

In this Methods Collection, we will present a comprehensive series of cutting-edge multimodal imaging techniques used for characterization of the pathological processes involved in CVD on a systemic level. Such techniques will include, for example, proton and x-nuclei magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET), employed in a wide range of animal models, including mice, rabbits, pigs, non-human primates as well as in clinical areas.