METHODS, SYSTEMS, AND DEVICES FOR TISSUE CHARACTERIZATION BY SPECTRAL SIMILARITY OF INTRAVASCULAR ULTRASOUND SIGNALS

摘要

A method of characterizing a tissue type of a tissue region includes providing a tissue classifier comprising multiple detector arrays for each of multiple tissue types. Each detector array comprises multiple detectors and each detector comprises multiple tissue type-assigned intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) spectra. A plurality of the tissue type-assigned IVUS spectra of each detector correspond to a tissue type of the detector and a plurality of the tissue type-assigned IVUS spectra correspond to other tissue types. For each of the detector arrays, an input IVUS spectrum of the tissue region is compared to the tissue type-assigned IVUS spectra of each of the detectors in the detector array. For each of the detectors, it is determined whether the input spectrum corresponds to the tissue type of the detector based on the comparisons of the input spectrum to the tissue type-assigned spectra for that detector. For each of the detector arrays, results of the detectors of the detector array are combined to produce an array result. The array results for the detector arrays are combined to provide a tissue characterization of the tissue region from the multiple tissue types.