Project background

Every year, more than 19 million people worldwide experience a
sudden coronary event, and this has long been the leading cause of
death in industrialized countries. Approximately
70% of these coronary events are caused by rupture of
vulnerable plaques, causing blood clots leading to stenosis
and infarction. A large portion of the people experiencing a
coronary event have no prior symptom or warning, therefore good
diagnostics is important to prevent such unexpected coronary events.


Objectives

The objective of this project is to develop a fiber optic probe for
use in intravascular, principally cardiovascular, applications.
Near-infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy will be the method
applied to achieve this. The defined activities includes:

NIR reflectance spectroscopy:
optimization of NIR reflectance spectroscopy techniques for vulnerable plaque detection.
identification of wavelength ranges, polarization requirements, signal modulation and data processing requirements.
Side-viewing fiber optic probe:
design and implementation fiber optic probe compatible with smart microsystem requirements.
testing of probe.
Integration:
integrate fiber optic probe with smart microsystem.
demonstrate combination of intra-vascular ultrasound (IVUS) imaging and optical spectroscopy.

Editor in Charge: Chairman of the Department, Contact address: Eivind.Larsen(ætt)iet.ntnu.no,