A closer look at atherosclerosis
Researchers at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have developed a one-micrometer-resolution version of the intravascular imaging technology optical coherence tomography (OCT) that can reveal cellular and subcellular features of coronary artery disease. In a Nature Medicine paper receiving advance online publication, the investigators describe how microOCT — which provides 10 times greater resolution than standard OCT — was able to show individual arterial and inflammatory cells, including features that may identify vulnerable plaques, within coronary artery samples. “MicroOCT has the contrast and resolution required to investigate the cellular and subcellular components underlying coronary atherosclerosis, the disease that precipitates heart attack,” says Harvard Medical School Professor Gary Tearney of the Wellman Center and the MGH Pathology Department, who led the study. “This high level of performance opens up the future possibility of observing these microscopic features in human patients, which has implications for improving the understanding, diagnosis,...