Intravascular optical coherence tomography

Shortly after the first demonstration of optical coherence tomography for imaging the microstructure of the human eye, work began on developing systems and catheters suitable for intravascular imaging in order to diagnose and investigate atherosclerosis and potentially to monitor therapy. This review covers the driving considerations of the clinical application and its constraints, the major engineering milestones that enabled the current, high performance commercial imaging systems, the key studies that laid the groundwork for image interpretation, and the clinical research that traces intravascular optical coherence tomography (OCT) from early human pilot studies to current clinical trials. (C) 2017 Optical Society of America