High-sensitivity intravascular photoacoustic imaging of lipid–laden plaque with a collinear catheter design

• DOI: 10.1038/srep25236
• Publication Date: 2016-04-28T09:14:09Z
• Authors: Yingchun Cao; Jie Hui; Ayeeshik Kole; Pu Wang; Qianhuan Yu; Weibiao Chen; Michael Sturek; Ji-Xin Cheng
• Keywords: Intravascular Ultrasound; Overtone

Abstract A highly sensitive catheter probe is critical to catheter-based intravascular photoacoustic imaging. Here, we present a design on the basis of collinear alignment incident optical wave and photoacoustically generated sound within miniature housing for first time. Such with an outer diameter 1.6 mm provided efficient overlap between acoustic waves over imaging depth >6 in D 2 O medium. Intravascular lipid-laden atherosclerotic plaque perivascular fat was demonstrated, where lab-built 500 Hz parametric oscillator outputting nanosecond pulses at wavelength 1.7 μm used overtone excitation C-H bonds. In addition imaging, presented will benefit other applications such as needle-based intramuscular