Safety and efficacy of frequency domain optical coherence tomography in pigs.

Aims: To determine the safety and efficacy of frequency domain OCT, which can scan at much higher rates and make it possible to avoid an occlusion balloon and image during an angiographic injection through guide catheter. The catheters have diameters ranging from 2.7 to 3.

Depth resolved photothermal OCT detection of macrophages in tissue using nanorose.

Application of photothermal Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) to detect macrophages in ex vivo rabbit arteries which have engulfed nanoclusters of gold coated iron oxide (nanorose) is reported. Nanorose engulfed by macrophages associated with atherosclerotic lesions in rabbit arteries absorb incident laser (800nm) energy and cause optical pathlength (OP) variation which is measured using photothermal OCT. OP variation in polydimethyl siloxane tissue phantoms containing varying concentrations of nanorose match values predicted from nanoparticle and material properties.

Small multifunctional nanoclusters (nanoroses) for targeted cellular imaging and therapy.

The ability of 20-50 nm nanoparticles to target and modulate the biology of specific types of cells will enable major advancements in cellular imaging and therapy in cancer and atherosclerosis. A key challenge is to load an extremely high degree of targeting, imaging, and therapeutic functionality into small, yet stable particles. Herein we report approximately 30 nm stable uniformly sized near-infrared (NIR) active, superparamagnetic nanoclusters formed by kinetically controlled self-assembly of gold-coated iron oxide nanoparticles.

Principal strain orientation in the normal human left ventricle.

Background: Methods that can improve the accuracy of application of directed intervention in the treatment of coronary artery disease deserve investigation. Magnetic resonance imaging with tissue tagging allows for noninvasive, quantitative determination of regionally varying minimum principal strain. Because the directional vector of minimum principal strain has been shown to be sensitive to ischemic involvement, my colleagues and I sought to fully characterize the normal range of vector direction in the in vivo human left ventricle at rest and during inotropic stimulation.

Use of a blood substitute to determine instantaneous murine right ventricular thickening with optical coherence tomography.

Background: A satisfactory imaging technique to determine regional wall thickening of the murine myocardium is not available. Although cardiovascular imaging with light offers a novel solution, application is problematic because scattering by erythrocytes causes significant optical attenuation.

Methods And Results: Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a technique for detailed resolution imaging of highly scattering biological tissues.