Determination of myocardial ischemia and degree of reperfusion based on optical coherence tomography

The feasibility of applying optical coherence tomography (OCT) in determining the degree of myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury is assessed. The left anterior descending coronary artery of 90 Sprague-Dawley rats are ligated and reperfused at different times. The total attenuation coefficient obtained from the OCT images in the experimental group keeps increasing with reperfusion time and highly correlates with the histopathological characteristics (P < 0.01). We present evidence proving the feasibility of using OCT for evaluating myocardial ischemia reperfusion.