| Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in industrialized nations. Angioplasty is performed on millions of patients every year. It is, therefore, essential to constantly explore and investigate new approaches to study and improve the outcomes of this minimally-invasive procedure. In this thesis, novel applications of intravascular optical coherence tomography (IVOCT) are proposed, namely, monitoring, characterization, simulation, and control of balloon inflation.;High-resolution IVOCT images lead to a detailed assessment of microstructures. Using image analysis techniques, IVOCT characterization of balloon deformation is presented as a method to validate the performance of balloons. IVOCT characterization of the deformation of artery phantoms is proposed as a method to study the tissue's response to various balloon sizes, various balloon folding strategies and various inflation strategies.;In addition, IVOCT characterization of deformation is proposed as a method to validate simulation results. This thesis provides a comparison between finite-element simulation results and experimental results for two case studies, which investigate the effects of variation of mechanical properties as well as balloon unfolding and inflation process.;Finally, in this thesis, methods are proposed to control the balloon inflation. During balloon inflation, the luminal diameter of an artery could be estimated in real-time and used in a feedback loop to control the inflation. The experimental relevance of this method is demonstrated when the balloon is inflated in an artery phantom, in an artery of an excised porcine heart and in an artery of a beating porcine heart.;The methods and the results, provided in this thesis, could benefit the developers of angioplasty devices, cardiovascular research, and clinical users. |
