Infrared Reflectivity of Mouse Atheromas A Case Study

Mid-Infrared Reflectivity of Mouse Atheromas A Case Study 

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA Division of Pediatric Radiology/Department of Radiology, Stanford University Hospital, Stanford, CA 94305, USA 

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in developed nations and is rapidly becoming the leading cause of death in developing nations as well. Every year, more than one million Americans and more than nineteen million people world-wide experience a sudden cardiac event. In more than half of the fatal cases, there were no documented coronary events prior to death. One factor that makes prevention of sudden cardiac death (SCD) particularly challenging is that those patients with a history of heart disease are the ones least likely to experience SCD.  

Today it is known that atherosclerosis is really a chronic infiammatory disease of arterial blood vessels. Atherosclerosis causes two main problems. The first is stenosis, a narrowing of the blood vessel which results in a restriction in blood fiow the second is the rupture of soft plaque (called vulnerable plaque), which causes the formation of a thrombus that can lead to sudden death. Until recently, efforts to treat atherosclerotic disease tended to focus on the detection and treatment of stenoses. However, more recent research has shown that acute plaque rupture is the far more prevalent and dangerous problem.  

In an effort to characterize the pathophysiologic state of atherosclerotic plaque as opposed to simply imaging the vessel lumen, a number of alternative methods have been tried  

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