Assessment of pulmonary artery morphology by optical coherence tomography

Since its invention, optical coherence tomography (OCT) has been primarily used for the diagnosis of coronary artery disease. A few feasibility studies of OCT to visualise the pulmonary arteries were reported. However, OCT findings in the pulmonary arteries have not been validated using histology as the gold standard. To validate OCT findings for pulmonary arterial imaging, we selected 27 pulmonary arteries from 11 cadavers (6 males, 5 females, mean age 39.6 ± 21.3 years). Comparison of OCT images and histology was performed. Each histological sample was examined using three types of stains, and the quantified results were analysed by statistics. In conclusion, there was a strong correlation between histology and OCT measurements of the pulmonary arterial wall thickness, the pulmonary arterial wall has a single-layered structure with an average thickness of 0.162 mm. We propose that OCT is probably a useful tool of diagnosing pulmonary artery hypertension and may provide a means to study the pulmonary remodelling process.