Figure 9
Three-dimensional (3D) visualizations of fibrous cap thickness on the representative IVOCT pullbacks, including: (A) short lesion with TCFA, (B) long lesion with TCFA, (C) short lesion without TCFA, and (D) long lesion without TCFA. The reader can zoom in each artery to see variations of fibrous cap thickness. (A) Although the lesion length was not too long (< 7 mm), the average fibrous cap thickness was less than 65 µm across the lesion indicating that the lesion is prone to rupture. (B) There were two lipidous lesions having 15 mm (left) and 5 mm (right) lengths. Both lesions were heavily lipidic with a mean cap thickness of < 65 µm. The artery was much more prone to rupture than (A). (C) The lesion was stable, since the length was short (< 3 mm) and the fibrous cap thickness was always greater than 150 µm. (D) Although the fibrous cap thickness was always over 80 µm across the lesion, the lesion length was very long (> 30 mm). There were several spots approaching toward the vulnerable plaque than (C). The color map visualizes the fibrous cap in the range of 0 to 300 µm. The yellow arrows indicate representative IVOCT frames of each rendering. Our method provides comprehensive fibrous cap map in the entire IVOCT pullback, so clinicians can make appropriate treatment decisions.
