Feasibility of endovascular optical coherence tomography for high-resolution carotid vessel wall imaging

Carotid Artery Stenting (CAS) is a procedure that treats carotid atherosclerosis which should be monitored by in vivo high resolution imaging for the quality of the procedure and potential complications. The purpose of this pilot study is to evaluate the ability of optical coherence tomography to construct high resolution two and three dimensional images of stenting in porcine carotid artery for high accuracy diagnostic purposes. Four Yorkshire pigs were anaesthetized and catheterized. A state-of-the-art optical coherence tomography (OCT) system (Lightlab Imaging, St. Jude Medical Inc.) and an automated injector were used to obtain both healthy and stented porcine carotid artery images. Data obtained were then processed for visualization. The state-of-the-art OCT system was able to capture high resolution images of both healthy and stented carotid arteries. High quality three dimensional images of stented carotid arteries were constructed, clearly depicting stent apposition and thrombus formation over different stents. The results demonstrated that current state-of-the-art OCT system can be used to generate high quality three dimensional images of carotid arterial stents for accurate diagnosis of stent apposition and complications under appropriate imaging conditions.