System and method of adventitial tissue characterization

• US 10,786,225 B2
• Filed: 02/26/2019
• Issued: 09/29/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 03/14/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Philips Image Guided Therapy Corporation (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Philips Image Guided Therapy Corporation (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Nair, Anuja
• Primary Examiner(s): Wang, Carol
• Application Number:
  US16/285,869
• Publication Number:
  US 20190183452A1
• Time in Patent Office: 581 Days
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 17/22 Implements for squeezing-off ulcers or the like on the inside of inner organs of the body; Implements for scraping-out cavities of body organs, e.g. bones; Calculus removers; Calculus smashing apparatus; Apparatus for removing obstructions in blood vessels, not otherwise provided for dilators A61M29/00
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 18/1492 having a flexible, catheter-like structure, e.g. for heart ablation A61B18/1477 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2017/22094 for crossing total occlusions, i.e. piercing
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2018/0041 Removal of thrombosis
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2018/00577 Ablation
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2018/00982 combined with or comprising means for visual or photographic inspections inside the body, e.g. endoscopes
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/085 for locating body or organic structures, e.g. tumours, calculi, blood vessels, nodules
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/0891 for diagnosis of blood vessels
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/12 in body cavities or body tracts, e.g. by using catheters catheters per se A61M25/00
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/445 Details of catheter construction
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/463 characterised by displaying multiple images or images and diagnostic data on one display composite display in devices for short-range imaging with acoustic waves G01S7/52074
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/5215 involving processing of medical diagnostic data
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/20 for computer-aided diagnosis, e.g. based on medical expert systems

Abstract

Disclosed herein is a system and method for characterizing adventitial tissue. In one aspect, a system and method are disclosed that characterizes tissue types within the adventitial tissue including nerve bundles and blood vessels. In a further aspect, the adventitia is imaged and characterized to provide guidance for crossing lesions within an occluded vessel.

Claims

1. A tangible, non-transient computer readable medium comprising microprocessor executable instructions that, when executed, perform operations comprising:

receiving, from an intravascular imaging device, image data;

transforming the image data into a frequency domain;

identifying a frequency spectrum for a portion of the image data;

characterizing whether the frequency spectrum corresponds to an anatomical structure within a region of interest within adventitial tissue of a blood vessel under evaluation for an ablation therapy, wherein the anatomical structure comprises at least one of a nerve, a nerve bundle, a further blood vessel, a muscle fiber, a connective tissue, fibroblasts, or fat cells; and

providing an alert representative of a presence of the anatomical structure within the region of interest within the adventitial tissue of the blood vessel based on the characterizing.

2. The tangible, non-transient computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the microprocessor executable instructions for characterizing whether the frequency spectrum corresponds to the anatomical structure within the region of interest of the blood vessel comprises identifying or characterizing the region of interest as adventitia.

3. The tangible, non-transient computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein the microprocessor executable instructions further comprise determining a degree of ablation for the adventitia.

4. The tangible, non-transient computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein the microprocessor executable instructions further comprise identifying and characterizing nerve bundles within the adventitia.

5. The tangible, non-transient computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein the microprocessor executable instructions further comprise identifying and characterizing perivascular tissue adjacent the adventitia.

6. The tangible, non-transient computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein the microprocessor executable instructions further comprise identifying and characterizing vasa vasorum within the adventitia.

7. The tangible, non-transient computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein the microprocessor executable instructions further comprise identifying and characterizing muscle tissue within the adventitia.

8. The tangible, non-transient computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the microprocessor executable instructions further comprise determining a degree of ablation for the portion of the image data.

9. The tangible, non-transient computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the microprocessor executable instructions further comprise outputting an image signal representative of the region of interest of the blood vessel.

10. The tangible, non-transient computer readable medium of claim 9, wherein the image signal is representative of an axial cross section of the region of interest of the blood vessel.

11. The tangible, non-transient computer readable medium of claim 10, wherein the image signal further comprises showing tissue characterization of the region of interest of the blood vessel.

12. The tangible, non-transient computer readable medium of claim 9, wherein the image signal is representative of a longitudinal cross section of the region of interest of the blood vessel.

13. The tangible, non-transient computer readable medium of claim 12, wherein the image signal further comprises showing tissue characterization of the region of interest of the blood vessel.

14. The tangible, non-transient computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the microprocessor executable instructions further comprise identifying a therapy device.

15. The tangible, non-transient computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein the microprocessor executable instructions further comprise alerting of the therapy device in the presence of the region of interest.

16. A tangible, non-transient computer readable medium comprising microprocessor executable instructions that, when executed, perform operations comprising:

receiving, from an intravascular imaging device, image data;

performing a spectral analysis of the image data and determining a plurality of spectral properties of the image data;

identifying one or more of the plurality of spectral properties for a portion of the image data;

characterizing whether the spectral properties corresponds to an anatomical structure within a region of interest within adventitial tissue of a blood vessel under evaluation for an ablation therapy, wherein the anatomical structure comprises at least one of a nerve, a nerve bundle, a further blood vessel, a muscle fiber, a connective tissue, fibroblasts, or fat cells; and

providing an alert representative of a presence of the anatomical structure within the region of interest within the adventitial tissue of the blood vessel based on the characterizing.

17. The tangible, non-transient computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the microprocessor executable instructions for characterizing whether the spectral properties correspond to the anatomical structure within the region of interest of the blood vessel comprises identifying or characterizing the region of interest as adventitia.

18. The tangible, non-transient computer readable medium of claim 17, wherein the microprocessor executable instructions further comprise determining a degree of ablation for the adventitia.

19. The tangible, non-transient computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the one or more of the plurality of spectral properties comprise maximum power, frequency at the maximum power, minimum power, the frequency at the minimum power, a slope, a y-intercept, a mid-band fit, and an integrated backscatter.

20. A tangible, non-transient computer readable medium comprising microprocessor executable instructions that, when executed, perform operations comprising:

receiving, from an intravascular imaging device, image data;

performing a differential analysis of the image data and determining a plurality of properties of the image data, wherein the differential analysis comprises at least one of a frequency analysis, a spectral analysis, an autoregression technique, a wavelet decomposition, and a curvelet decomposition on the image data;

identifying one or more of the plurality of properties for a portion of the image data;

characterizing whether the one or more of the plurality of properties corresponds to an anatomical structure within a region of interest within adventitial tissue of a blood vessel under evaluation for an ablation therapy, wherein the anatomical structure comprises at least one of a nerve, a nerve bundle, a further blood vessel, a muscle fiber, a connective tissue, fibroblasts, or fat cells; and

providing an alert representative of a presence of the anatomical structure within the region of interest within the adventitial tissue of the blood vessel based on the characterizing.