Images of arterial tissues using catheter swept source optical coherence tomography

Optical coherence tomography images of arterial samples harvested from asymptomatic pigs and from lipid-rich Watanabe heritable hyperlipidemic rabbits were acquired using a fiber catheter-based swept-source optical coherence tomography system (OCT). A quadrature Mach-Zehnder interferometer based on multi-port fiber couplers and a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) were employed in the swept-source optical coherence tomography system. The improvement of signal to noise ratio as a result of incorporating the SOA into the configuration translated in an increase of the penetration depth. A fiber probe ending in a fiber ball lens was developed for the arterial imaging. The images acquired by this system offer the possibility to investigate anatomical details located under the surface of the artery such as the intima, media, and adventitia layers (from lumen side) of the blood vessel wall , as well as morphological features specific to artherosclerotic plaques such as lipid pools, fibrous caps, macrophage accumulations and calcified. This report indicates that our improved catheter-based swept source OCT is a potential tool for in vivo intravascular imaging.