Coronary Plaque Characterization Utilizing Quantum Optics Approaches with OC

描述(由申请人提供)：心肌梗死(MI)是工业化国家死亡的主要原因，几乎完全是由细小、薄壁、充满脂质的斑块破裂引起的。当这些斑块破裂时，它们会释放血栓物质进入血液，导致血栓形成和随后的血管闭塞。直到最近光学相干断层扫描(OCT)的商业应用，这些小的薄壁斑块超出了临床成像方式的分辨率极限。但是，尽管OCT对识别细小薄壁斑块非常敏感，但它将斑块细分为脂类(不稳定与非脂类(稳定))的能力很差。由于冠状动脉介入治疗具有很大的风险，因此在介入治疗的风险分层中，确定脂质核心是必不可少的。在这项建议中，我们使用一种新的检测方案，利用具有优越量子特性的光子对(称为双光子波包或二阶关联{SOC})来区分脂斑块和非脂斑块。虽然这些双光子通常被OCT滤除为噪声，但可以通过OCT系统的修改进行测量，还可以获得OCT图像。在这个方案中使用的许多SOC量子原理最初是在过去几十年中使用特殊的量子源来研究的，这种量子源一次产生大约一个双光子的纠缠光子对。这些原理最近已被用于传统的热光。在2008年发表的一篇论文中，使用改进的OCT设置，我们能够使用热产生的SOC来区分脂类和非脂类，利用非定域性和叠加性(位置概率幅度的扩展)的量子现象。然而，这一设置需要预先了解两个反射器之间的分离，这一点的临床价值有限，此外还需要信号啁啾和离线小区分析。通过对干涉仪的重新设计(只需要一次反射)，我们将演示来自原型系统的试点数据，从而克服了这一点。该系统只需要一个反射镜和一个干涉仪，具有实时检测方案(数据表示为相关峰和反相关峰)。这一建议的假设是，通过分析从斑块反向反映的SOC变化，可以区分脂斑块和非脂斑块。它将通过建立临床上可行的OCT/SOC组合系统并用模体和体外斑块进行评估来进行测试。这是一个影响很大的建议，因为1.意义很大，因为它为预防许多心肌梗死提供了一种解决方案，代表了相当大的死亡率和发病率好处。2.它具有很高的创新性，这既是因为它使用高强度的热量子SOC来识别斑块，也是因为开发了一种无与伦比的成像实施例。3.该团队在OCT、量子力学、基础研究、临床研究和心脏病学方面拥有相当多的专业知识。4.该方法开发了两个新的OCT/SOC实施例：评估其在模体和动脉粥样硬化斑块上的各种系统参数。5.环境的结构是为了产生从物理和工程到临床试验的前沿科学。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Myocardial infarctions (MI), the leading cause of mortality in industrialized countries, almost exclusively result from the rupture of small, thin walled, lipid filled plaques. When these plaques rupture, they release thrombogenic material into the blood, which leads to clot formation and subsequent vessel occlusion. Until the recent commercial availability of optical coherence tomography (OCT), these small thin walled plaques were beyond the resolution limits of clinical imaging modalities. But while OCT is very sensitive for identifying small thin walled plaques, it's ability to subclassifying them into lipid (unstable versus non-lipid (stable) is poor. Since coronary interventions carry significant risk, determination of a lipid core is essential in risk stratifying for interventional therapy. In this proposal, we use a novel detection scheme utilizing photon pairs (termed biphoton wavepacket or 2nd order correlations {SOC}) with advantageous quantum properties to differentiate lipid from non-lipid plaques. Though typically filtered out as noise with OCT, these biphotons can be measured with OCT system modifications and also allow OCT images to be obtained. Many of the SOC quantum principles utilized in this proposal were originally studied, over the last several decades, using special quantum sources which generate entangled photon pairs approximately one biphoton at a time. These principles have recently been utilized with conventional thermal light. In a paper published in 2008, using a modified OCT set- up, we were able to use thermally generated SOC to differentiate lipid from nonlipid utilizing the quantum phenomena of nonlocality and superposition (spread of the position probability amplitude). However, the set- up required pre-knowledge of the separation between two reflectors that was of limited clinical value, in addition to requiring signal chirping and analysis of offline plots. hat has been overcome with a redesign of the interferometer (only one reflection needed), for which we will demonstrate pilot data from a prototype system. The proposed system needs only a single reflector and one interferometer, with a real time detection scheme (data represented as correlation and anti-correlation peaks). The hypothesis of this proposal is that lipid and non-lipi plaque can be differentiated by analyzing SOC alterations backreflected from plaque. It will be tested by building a clinically viable combined OCT/SOC system and evaluating it with phantoms and in vitro plaque. This is a high impact proposal because 1. The significance is high as it provides a solution for prevention of many MI, representing a substantial mortality and morbidity benefit. 2. It is highly innovative both because it uses thermal quantum SOC at high intensity for identifying the plaque and because an imaging embodiment is developed with no parallel. 3. The team has considerable expertise in OCT, quantum mechanics, basic research, clinical research, and cardiology. 4. The approach develops two novel OCT/SOC embodiments: evaluating their various system parameters on phantoms and atherosclerotic plaque. 5. The environment is structured to produce forefront science from physics and engineering to clinical trials.