Ultrafine intravascular photoacoustic endoscope with a 0.7 mm diameter probe

Intravascular photoacoustic (IVPA) imaging, benefiting from high optical contrast, large imaging depth and absorption specificity, is of great potential for lipid-rich plaque detection. However, the diameters of reported IVPA endoscopes are too big to intervene into the coronary artery branches. Here, by designing an ultracompact house embedded with a side-fire fiber and a miniature single-element ultrasound transducer, we developed an ultrafine IVPA endoscope with a diameter of 0.7 mm aiming at coronary artery branches atherosclerotic plaque detection. The reliability and feasibility of the ultrafine IVPA endoscope was demonstrated by imaging a stent with a 1.6 mm inner diameter. Furthermore, the photoacoustic imaging and ultrasound imaging of a mouse thoracic aorta with an inner diameter of 1.15 mm was conducted to verify the clinical potentiality of the endoscope, and the PA images have good consistency with histological staining results. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time we have achieved the IVPA imaging in fine vessel by the 0.7 mm diameter ultrafine photoacoustic endoscope, which paved a way for the translation of the IVPA endoscope to clinical application.