Fully integrated optical coherence tomography, ultrasound, and indocyanine green-based fluorescence tri-modality system for intravascular imaging

We present a tri-modality imaging system and fully integrated tri-modality probe for intravascular imaging. The tri-modality imaging system is able to simultaneously acquire optical coherence tomography (OCT), ultrasound (US), and fluorescence imaging. Moreover, for fluorescence imaging, we used the FDA-approved indocyanine green (ICG) dye as the contrast agent to target lipid-loaded macrophages. We conducted imaging from a male New Zealand white rabbit to evaluate the performance of the tri-modality system. In addition, tri-modality images of rabbit aortas were correlated with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) histology to check the measurement accuracy. The fully integrated miniature tri-modality probe, together with the use of ICG dye suggest that the system is of great potential for providing a more accurate assessment of vulnerable plaques in clinical applications.