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Optical-imaging method could improve angioplasty

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An optical-imaging technique developed in Canada could improve angioplasty, a surgery commonly performed to treat patients with a partially or completely blocked coronary artery that restricts blood to the heart.

Angioplasty involves threading a slender, balloon-tipped tube from an artery in the groin to the trouble spot in the artery of the heart. The balloon is then inflated to compress the plaque that is blocking the artery. These balloons can also be used to deploy a stent, which is a wire-mesh tube sometimes inserted into the artery during an angioplasty procedure to keep it open and prevent reblockage.

In both cases, an optimal balloon design is critical to the success of an operation.

Researchers at the National Research Council of Canada have now developed a deployment tester equipped with a system to monitor the outer diameter of the balloon.

With the goal of improving balloon deployment, the researchers investigated obtaining a more precise monitoring of inflation by combining a deployment tester with an optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging system. OCT allows imaging over a depth of a few millimetres in a tissue or material.

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