In-vivo optical coherence tomography image analysis

Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is a recent modality, which measures the intensity of back-reflected infrared light. The main advantage of OCT is its high resolution at the cost of a decreased penetration depth. OCT can differentiate between typical constituents of atherosclerotic plaques, such as lipid, calcium, and fibrous tissue better than intravascular ultrasound as shown by recent studies, also related to plaque vulnerability. Moreover, it has been shown that OCT provides monitoring of stents imaged in-vivo after percutaneous coronary interventions, which is important for quantification of in-stent neointimal hyperplasia. Image analysis problems using intra-coronary OCT pullbacks will be presented for study of atherosclerotic plaque composition and mainly follow-up of in-stent restenosis using in-vivo OCT images.