A novel impedance-based tomography approach for stenotic plaque detection: a simulation study

Rupture of high-risk, vulnerable plaques is responsible for coronary thrombosis, the main cause of unstable angina, acute myocardial infarction, and sudden cardiac death, therefore techniques capable of detecting vulnerable plaques play an important role in evaluating the coronary arteries. By taking advantage of the significantly low electrical conductivity of plaques, an impedance-based tomography approach was proposed in this study for detecting stenotic plaques. Image reconstructions, carried out with the differential imaging method, yield fairly good cross-sectional images of the modeled conductivity changes induced by atheroma, and demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach for plaque detection.