Progress of quantitative intravascular optical coherence tomography

Abstract

Intravascular optical coherence tomography (IVOCT) has emerged as a high-resolution and minimal-invasive imaging technique that provides high-speed visualization of coronary arterial vessel walls and clearly displays the vessel lumen and lesions under the intima. However, morphological gray-scale images cannot provide enough information about the tissue components to accurately characterize the plaque tissues including calcified, fibrous, lipidic and mixed plaques. Quantitative IVOCT ( qIVOCT) is necessary to provide the physiological contrast mechanisms and obtain the characteristic parameters of tissues with clinical diagnostic value. In this paper, the progress of qIVOCT is reviewed. The current methods for quantitatively measuring optical, elastic and hemodynamic parameters of vessel wall and plaque tissues using IVOCT gray-scale images and raw backscattered signals are introduced and potential development is forecast.