| Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is a leading cause of death in the United States and industrialized countries. Research conducted over the past 20 years has demonstrated that numerous types of minimal to modest stenotic atherosclerotic plaques, termed vulnerable plaques, are precursors to severe complications, including coronary thrombosis, myocardial ischemia, and sudden cardiac death. Post-mortem analyses have identified the thin-cap fibroatheroma (TCFA), a type of vulnerable plaque, as the culprit lesion in roughly 80% of sudden cardiac deaths. Further study is necessary in order to fully understand the morphology, and thus properly diagnose and treat these lesions as means of prevention of coronary artery disease (CAD).;The work presented here attempts to take the first step toward gauging the viability of terahertz imaging as a diagnostic procedure. Characterizing the material parameters of healthy arterial tissue is necessary in order to create electromagnetic models to assess the ability of terahertz to penetrate and characterize the specific structure of healthy artery, and thus be able to distinguish it from a vulnerable plaque.;Though general tissues have already been characterized at these frequencies (epithelium, adipose, muscle, etc.), no study has attempted to characterize arterial tissue. Porcine tissue was chosen for study, as its biological makeup is relatable to that of a human's, and samples were easily available. Utilizing a transmission geometry THz spectrometer, measurements of the tissue's electric properties were extracted. |
