ABSTRACT
Recent years have seen exponential improvements in rapidity
and resolution of tomographic cardiac imaging, such that it
seems the once science-fiction notion of externally ‘scanning’
near-microscopic details of living patients is becoming a real-
ity. While histopathology remains the standard for defini-
tively characterizing coronary plaques (as the oft-repeated
pathology joke punchline goes) the answer comes a week too
late. Consequently, there has been a cooperative striving
among several disciplines for an accurate noninvasive means
of assessing coronary disease and predicting which patients
will develop acute coronary syndrome, and when. An excit-
ing opportunity has arisen to connect the knowledge and
experience from decades of histopathologic studies of autopsy
and explanted hearts with the emerging ability to radi-
ographically resolve fine details of plaque morphology. This
chapter will attempt to realize that opportunity.
