Ultrasound Appearances of Coronary Stents as Obtained by Three-Dimensional Intracoronary Ultrasound Imaging In Vitro

Intracoronary ultrasound (ICUS) is an imaging technique which can provide a cross-sectional image of coronary arteries and implanted stents. Different stents may have individual ICUS imaging characteristics. To investigate the imaging characteristics and three-dimensional (3-D) reconstruction of different coronary stent designs, we examined 26 different stents using ICUS in vitro. All stents could be well visualized with planar ICUS. In 18 stents, 3-D imaging succeeded in reconstructing the spatial stent architecture. This was not possible in the other 8 stents, most probably because of predominantly transversally-orientated strut architecture, the small size of the strut wire width, the limited ICUS lateral catheter resolution, and the smoothing and interpolation algorithms applied for 3-D reconstruction. ICUS in vitro provides a means of identifying coronary stent structures which may be applicable in vivo. Three-D reconstruction of the entire stent architecture in vitro can be achieved in stents with mesh or slotted tube design, while stents with coil design and thin strut wires can only be partially reconstructed.