slightly rusted base plate. should I be worried?

[iExcel]

I recently got a few ACDelco PF48 filters and found a couple rust dots on the base plates of some of them. The steel center tubes and filter material look excellent. According to the seller, they were purchased online around March 2010. I'm not sure if I should use them but thought they should probably be OK for a 5k run with QSUD. Thoughts?

 

[Cristobal]

I doubt a little rust will be an issue. The only problem I could see would be if there is rust right under both sides of the filter gasket, but even that should not leak much if at all.

 

[Texan4Life]

I would run it and not worry. IF some tiny specs of rust did dislodge, they would be filtered before entering the engine.