title: Endovascular optical coherence tomography intensity kurtosis: visualization of vasa vasorum in porcine carotid artery.
abstract: Application of speckle variance optical coherence tomography (OCT) to endovascular imaging faces difficulty of extensive motion artifacts inherently associated with arterial pulsations in addition to other physiological movements. In this study, we employed a technique involving a fourth order statistical method, kurtosis, operating on the endovascular OCT intensity images to visualize the vasa vasorum of carotid artery in vivo and identify its flow dynamic in a porcine model. The intensity kurtosis technique can distinguish vasa vasorum from the surrounding tissues in the presence of extensive time varying noises and dynamic motions of the arterial wall. Imaging of vasa vasorum and its proliferation, may compliment the growing knowledge of structural endovascular OCT in assessment and treatment of atherosclerosis in coronary and carotid arteries.
authors.forename: Kyle H Y
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.forename: Cuiru
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Barry
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Vuong
authors.forename: Kenneth K C
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Adrian
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mariampillai
authors.forename: Thomas R
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: Marotta
authors.forename: Julian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Spears
authors.forename: Walter J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Montanera
authors.forename: Peter R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Herman
authors.forename: Tim-Rasmus
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: Kiehl
authors.forename: Beau A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Standish
authors.forename: Victor X D
authors.initials: VX
authors.lastname: Yang