New England Fiberoptic Council

A method for detecting lipid-containing plaques in the coronary arteries using a fiber-optic catheter has been developed and is now in use clinically. With this technology, the chemical composition of the vascular wall can be measured through blood during percutaneous coronary interventions. Lipid core containing plaques that are suspected to be vulnerable can be distinguished from other types of plaques that are considered to be less likely to rupture and cause death. This talk will describe the technique used for these measurements, its validation, and some of the clinical results.

Bio

Michael Burka is the Director of Hardware Engineering at InfraReDx, Inc., a medical device manufacturer with expertise in near-infrared spectroscopic technology and its application to medical imaging. He holds a Ph.D. in Physics from the Johns Hopkins University and has developed optical instrumentation for use in the fields of gravitational radiation detection, high altitude atmospheric LIDAR, FTIR and Raman spectroscopy, optical telecommunications, and medical imaging.

Registration will start at beginning of April.  For more information, e-mail info@nefc.com