Towards biomechanical assessment of coronary arteries under recapitulated physiological motion with asynchronous shear wave optical coherence elastography

Vulnerable plaques with soft, lipid-rich cores and thin caps are prone to rupture, but no imaging tools are currently capable of measuring their mechanical properties in vivo due to cardiac motion. Optical coherence tomography offers high-resolution intravascular imaging but lacks mechanical contrast. Optical coherence elastography extends it to quantify elasticity, but conventional shear wave methods are slow and motion-sensitive, making them fundamentally incompatible in catheters. To address this, we have developed asynchronous elastography, eliminating phase-locked acquisition and enabling practical shear wave imaging via catheter, which we will validate in a physiologically accurate soft robotic beating heart model.