ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the technical principles of intracoronary optical coherence tomography (OCT), summarizes the preclinical and clinical research, discusses clinical applications, and explains the practical performance of OCT as a diagnostic and interventional tool in the catheterization laboratory. Conventional intracoronary imaging techniques such as virtual histology- intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) lack the resolution to evaluate the fibrous cap in detail. IVUS-guided percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is essentially a post-stent assessment/optimization tool. The normal coronary vessel wall has three-layer architecture with a signal rich intima, a low backscattering, or signal poor media, and a heterogeneous and high backscattering adventitia. OCT has the advantage of automatically segmenting all frames and determining not only the reference vessel size but also the minimal lumen area (MLA). OCT is a safe method that can be used on a daily basis in a heterogeneous population. OCT is considered a safe clinical tool.
