Optical biopsy of artery with OCT

摘要

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) takes the advantage of the low coherence property of a light source to get the image of biological tissue structures. It provides important information on the contour and thickness of tissue structures, which can be of great help for clinical diagnostic procedures. Usually, the resolution of OCT image ranges from 2 to 20 microns. At the beginning of tissue pathologic changes, the foci could be located with OCT and cured in time. In this paper, some images of rabbit' femoral artery wall taken by our OCT system are presented. From these pictures, the three-layered structure coincides with the atlas well. In addition, the image of femoral artery wall with fat deposit is shown and the tunica media is thicker than that of normal vessel wall. The ability of OCT to image tissue microstructure near the cellular level make it potential for minimally invasive probing of tissue disease. The high resolution of OCT, which is greater than any other conventional clinic imaging modality, and based on fiber, makes it particularly attractive for the assessment of early cardiovascular plaque.