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European Heart Journal Advance Access published online on June 16, 2008
European Heart Journal, doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehn053
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Published on behalf of the European Society of Cardiology. All rights reserved. © The Author 2008. For permissions please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Intravascular ultrasound tissue characterization. I like the rainbow but... what's behind the colours?

Fernando Alfonso* and Lorenzo Hernando

Interventional Cardiology, Cardiac Department, Cardiovascular Institute, San Carlos University Hospital, Plaza de Cristo Rey, Madrid 28040, Spain

* Corresponding author. Email: falf@hotmail.com

This editorial refers to ‘The correlation between lipid volume in the target lesion, measured by integrated backscatter intravascular ultrasound, and post-procedural myocardial infarction in patients with elective stent implantation’ by T. Uetani et al. doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehn248

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) remains the gold standard for, precise, high-quality visualization of atherosclerotic plaque on the vessel wall.1 Conventional grey-scale IVUS provides unique insights into the underlying substrate of atherosclerotic disease, and classical studies have demonstrated that plaque echogenicity correlated with its histological composition. However, despite its ability to provide direct insight on plaque composition, grey-scale IVUS has been unable to identify vulnerable plaques.2 The reason for this appears to be multifaceted. First, the current resolution of the technique is unable to define some subtle characteristics of these plaques, including the thickness of the fibrous cap. Secondly, ‘thrombotic-prone’ plaques have several pathological substrates apart from the classical ‘vulnerable plaque’ (i.e. thin cap fibroateroma) and, phenotypically, constitute a moving target. Thirdly, further accuracy to identify better the distinct histological components of atherosclerotic plaques with IVUS is clearly required.

What have we learnt from IVUS tissue characterization?

Some technological developments have attempted to overcome the limitations of conventional IVUS to . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Can tissue characterization predict the risk of myocardial injury?

Potential clinical implications


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