Quantitative 3D Analysis of Coronary Wall Morphology in Heart Transplant Patients: OCT-Assessed Cardiac Allograft Vasculopathy Progression

Cardiac allograft vasculopathy (CAV) represents the leading cause of late morbidity and mortality in heart transplant (HTx) recipients (Chih et  al., 2016; Wever-Pinzon et al., 2014). Overall, CAV accounts for about 30% of all HTx patient deaths. For patients at high risk for CAV complications after HTx, therapy must be initiated early to be effective. Once CAV causes allograft dysfunction, the only long-term therapeutic solution is a re- transplantation. Therefore, development of a methodology for quantitative detection of early CAV progression, sufficiently sensitive to initially small changes of the intimal and medial layers and offering high measurement accuracy is of utmost importance.

Source: Medical Image Analysis - September 14, 2018 Category: Radiology Authors: Zhi Chen, Michal Pazdernik, Honghai Zhang, Andreas Wahle, Zhihui Guo, Helena Bedanova, Josef Kautzner, Vojtech Melenovsky, Tomas Kovarnik, Milan Sonka Source Type: research