Intravascular Ultrasound/Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Technology Designed to Detect Lipid Core Plaque

A coronary imaging system is the world's first intravascular imaging system that combines and coregisters grayscale intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) with proprietary near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy lipid core plaque detection technology.

InfraReDx, Inc. (Burlington, MA, USA), a medical device company providing cardiovascular diagnostic imaging technologies, reported that its LipiScan IVUS coronary imaging system was featured in several oral and poster presentations during the American College of Cardiology 60th annual Scientific Session (ACC.11) and Innovation in Intervention 2011 (i2 Summit), held April 2-5, 2011, in New Orleans, LA, USA.

"We are pleased with the level of interest the LipiScan IVUS has received since its launch last year, and we look forward to the numerous presentations highlighting this novel product at ACC.11 and the i2 Summit," said Donald Southard, InfraReDx president and chief executive officer. "The LipiScan IVUS permits physicians to identify both the structure--with IVUS--and chemistry--with LipiScan--of coronary plaques in a single pullback. The IVUS information is useful for determining the degree of stenosis and for guiding stenting, while the LipiScan data can identify stenotic lipid core plaques, which are at increased risk of causing peristenting myocardial infarction when dilated."

In addition to the oral and poster presentations, James E. Muller, MD, InfraReDx founder, chairman, and chief medical officer, gave a presentation titled "Multimodality Near-infrared Spectroscopy and IVUS Coronary Imaging: Strategies to Prevent the First Coronary Event and Improve Coronary Stenting."

The LipiScan IVUS coronary imaging system employs proprietary optical imaging technology to overcome the challenges of heart motion, blood interference, and vascular access to perform NIR spectroscopic analysis of the vessel and produce a chemical map of lipid-core plaque called a Chemogram. The system also provides physicians with a traditional IVUS image that shows plaque location, degree of stenosis, and degree of stent expansion. At the same time, optical data are recorded that permit identification and co-localization of lipid core plaques. This innovative multimodality analysis is accomplished directly in the catheterization laboratory during the coronary intervention via a single catheter pullback procedure. The data are immediately available to the physician to help guide the stenting procedure.

The imaging system includes the first and only available catheter to combine both NIR and IVUS technologies to both visualize and characterize the intracoronary lipid core plaques (LCPs) demonstrated to complicate stenting and suspected of causing the majority of heart attacks.

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