Assessment of arterial characteristics in human atherosclerosis by extracting optical properties from polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography.

In this research, we assessed arterial characteristics in human atherosclerosis by determining both scattering and birefringence properties of vessel tissue from polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) images. We demonstrated that optical characteristics including scattering coefficient (mu(s)), effective anisotropy factor (g(eff)), birefringence coefficient (Delta n), and fast-axis angle (beta) of normal and different kinds of atherosclerotic lesions in human vessels can be quantitatively described. Based on our findings, a quantitative PS-OCT image criterion for plaque characterization was constructed.