Intravascular optical coherence tomography method for automated detection of macrophage infiltration within atherosclerotic coronary plaques
Background and aims Significant macrophages infiltration in advanced atherosclerotic plaques promotes acute coronary events. Hence, the clinical imaging of macrophage content in coronary atherosclerotic plaques could potentially aid in identifying patients most at risk of future acute coronary events. The aim of this study was to introduce and validate a simple intravascular optical coherence tomography (IV-OCT) image processing method for automated, accurate and fast detection of macrophage infiltration within coronary atherosclerotic plaques. Methods This method calculates the ratio of the normalized-intensity standard deviation (NSD) values estimated over two axially-adjacent regions of interest in an IV-OCT cross-sectional image (B-scan). When applied ...
Login to comment.