In vivo feasibility of endovascular Doppler optical coherence tomography.
Feasibility of detecting intravascular flow using a catheter based endovascular optical coherence tomography (OCT) system is demonstrated in a porcine carotid model in vivo. The effects of A-line density, radial distance, signal-to-noise ratio, non-uniform rotational distortion (NURD), phase stability of the swept wavelength laser and interferometer system on Doppler shift detection limit were investigated in stationary and flow phantoms. Techniques for NURD induced phase shift artifact removal were developed by tracking the catheter sheath. Detection of high flow velocity (~51 cm/s) present in the porcine carotid artery was obtained by phase unwrapping techniques and compared to numerical simulation, taking into consideration flow profile distortion by the eccentrically positioned imaging catheter. Using diluted blood in saline mixture as clearing agent, simultaneous Doppler OCT imaging of intravascular flow and structural OCT imaging of the carotid artery wall was feasible. To our knowledge, this is the first in vivo demonstration of Doppler imaging and absolute measurement of intravascular flow using a rotating fiber catheter in carotid artery.
Biophotonics and Bioengineering Laboratory, Dept. Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ryerson University, 350 Victoria St. Toronto, ON, M5B2K3  Canada ; These authors contributed equally to this work.
Cuiru
C
Sun
Felix
F
Nolte
Kyle H Y
KH
Cheng
Barry
B
Vuong
Kenneth K C
KK
Lee
Beau A
BA
Standish
Brian
B
Courtney
Thomas R
TR
Marotta
Adrian
A
Mariampillai
Victor X D
VX
Yang