Clinical System for Arterial Tissue Characterization

描述（由申请人提供）：动脉粥样硬化是全球工业化国家的主要死亡原因。在美国，几乎完全归因于冠状动脉粥样硬化的心肌梗死占所有死亡的20%至25%。治疗方法是可行的，但没有可靠的方法可以提前预测哪些病变会进展。一个主要原因是血管的原位活检是困难和危险的，因此组织病理学不能常规地用于提供关于患病血管状态的信息。大量的体外研究文献表明，动脉壁的荧光光谱可以区分正常、动脉粥样硬化和钙化的动脉粥样硬化斑块。然而，由于几个原因，很少有成功的体内研究。原因之一是缺乏合适的光学探头。另一个原因是血红蛋白的吸收经常会扭曲荧光特征，使其无法正确分析。NLI建议通过设计、制造和测试一种新的侧视光学探针来解决这些限制，该探针将在体内测量动脉组织的荧光和反射率。通过这两次测量，可以获得不受散射和吸收过程失真的固有荧光光谱，这将大大提高光学诊断的可靠性。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Atherosclerosis is the leading cause of death in industrialized countries, worldwide. In the United States, myocardial infarctions, almost entirely attributable to coronary artery atherosclerosis, account for 20 to 25% of all deaths. Therapies are available, but no reliable methods can predict in advance which lesions will progress. One major reason is that in situ biopsies of blood vessels is difficult and risky, so histopathology cannot be used routinely to provide information about the state of diseased vessels. A substantial literature of in vitro studies show that fluorescence spectroscopy of arterial walls can distinguish between normal, atherosclerotic and calcified atherosclerotic plaque. Few successful in vivo studies have been done, however, for several reasons. One reason is the lack of a suitable optical probe. Another reason is that hemoglobin absorption often distorts the fluorescence signatures to the point where they cannot be properly analyzed. NLI proposes to address these limitations by designing, fabricating and testing a new side-looking optical probe which will measure, in vivo, both fluorescence and reflectance from arterial tissue. From these two measurements intrinsic fluorescence spectra, undistorted by scattering and absorption processes can be obtained, which will greatly improve the reliability of the optical diagnosis.