First generation drug-eluting stents (DES) are associated with reduced in-stent restenosis but significant increased risk of very late stent thrombosis (VLST). The absence of polymer in DES systems may reduce the occurrence of VLST. Optic coherence tomography (OCT) has been used for stent analysis as a surrogate safety endpoint. This study aimed to assess the long-term follow up of strut apposition and tissue coverage of BioMatrix™ DES by OCT. 20 patients undergoing BioMatrix™ DES (n = 15) or S-Stent™ BMS (n = 5) implantation were followed for at least 5 years and evaluated by quantitative coronary angiography, intravascular ultrasound, and OCT. The ...

Aims: Frequency-domain optical coherence tomography (FD-OCT) provides a rapid tomographic scan of a coronary vessel, with an accurate reconstruction of its lumen profile. An FD-OCT-based metric that corresponds more closely with physiological significance of lesions may enable more precise guidance of interventional procedures. The aim of this feasibility study was to evaluate a new method for quantifying coronary lesion severity that estimates hyperaemic flow resistance of branched vessel segments imaged by FD-OCT. Methods and results: An analytical flow model was developed that relates fractional flow reserve (FFR) to the vascular resistance ratio (VRR), a measure of blood flow resistance derived ...

FD-OCT is a new imaging technique that allows unprecedented in vivo microlevel assessment of human carotid plaque morphologic patterns and stent-vessel interactions. Prior reports describing the use of this technique have used balloon occlusion of the target vessel or iodinated contrast media to facilitate imaging. We report, for the first time, in vivo FD-OCT imaging of human carotid arteries without the use of iodinated contrast material or balloon occlusion techniques.

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. Stent implantation by means of percutaneous coronary intervention is the most common coronary revascularization procedure. Intravascular Optical Coherence Tomography (iOCT) is the only imaging modality with the resolution and contrast necessary to enable accurate measurements of luminal architecture and neointima stent coverage. Manual analysis of intravascular OCT pullbacks is time consuming, limiting the size and number of studies that can be performed. We developed a highly automated method for detecting stent struts and measuring tissue coverage. Candidate struts were first identified using image processing techniques. We trained a bagged decision trees ...

Abstract: Background. Novel vascular scaffolds aim at equipoise between safety and efficacy. Intravascular optical coherence tomography (OCT) allows in-vivo serial assessment of stent-vessel interactions with high resolution and frequent sampling and may complement histology assessment. We investigated the vascular response to a novel absorbable coating sirolimus-eluting stent (AC-SES) by means of serial OCT and histology evaluation in a porcine model. Methods. One AC-SES and one bare-metal stent (BMS) were implanted in separate coronary arteries of three Yucatan mini-swine. Serial OCT was performed post procedure and at 3-, 28-, 90-, and 180-day follow-up. Normalized optical density (NOD) was used for the ...

Intravascular optical coherence tomography (iOCT) is being used to assess viability of new coronary artery stent designs. We developed a highly automated method for detecting stent struts and measuring tissue coverage. We trained a bagged decision trees classifier to classify candidate struts using features extracted from the images. With 12 best features identified by forward selection, recall (precision) were 90%–94% (85%–90%). Including struts deemed insufficiently bright for manual analysis, precision improved to 94%. Strut detection statistics approached variability of manual analysis. Differences between manual and automatic area measurements were 0.12 ± 0.20 mm 2 and 0.11 ...