Images in cardiovascular medicine. Catheter-based optical imaging of a human coronary artery.

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a recently developed technology that uses infrared light to generate micrometer-scale cross-sectional images ( Science. 1991;254:1178-1181). We recently demonstrated the feasibility of using OCT for assessing atherosclerotic plaque microstructure ( Circulation. 1996;93:1206-1213) at resolutions of 4 to 16 …