| 摘要 |
A catheter-based optical imaging system receives cardiac event timing data, such as ECG data, from the patient and a trigger module 67 initiates an imaging scan between heart beats to reduce artefacts in the image data. A pullback system 63 is motorised and withdraws the imaging device through an outer catheter 61at a speed of at least 100 mm/s. Preferably the imaging device is an optical coherence tomography (OCT) interferometer 65 using a frequencyscanning laser operating in the wavelength range 1260-1360 nm and the beam being rotated to give 3200 frames per second. Also disclosed is a catheterbased imaging system in which an optical element (83, figure 10) comprises two transmissive interfaces such as an optical fibre (85) and a GRIN or ball lens (86) and a reflective interface such as a curved mirror (100) to deflect the beam through a right angle. |
