Evaluation of the characterization of thrombi in vitro by optical coherence tomography

AimThe purpose of this study was to provide a new assessable method of the optical coherence tomography (OCT) in characterization of thrombi with different concentrations of red blood cell (RBC).Methods and resultsA series of thrombus models were constructed by using human blood in vitro. The thrombi were made by using human blood with different concentration of RBC (from 1% to 35%). Then tip of an FD-OCT catheter was put on the top of the thrombus to scan. After OCT being performed, all the acquired images were processed by a newly developed software to analyze the RBC levels related thrombus characteristics including attenuation, backscattering and light penetration depth. The attenuation was correlated with RBC concentration up to 9%. However, no apparent change was observed in thrombus with RBC concentration range from 10% to 35%. The same trend was seen in backscattering and penetration depth.ConclusionsFD-OCT is able to detect thrombus with different RBC concentrations up to 9%.