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(Circulation. 1997;96:3030-3041.)
© 1997 American Heart Association, Inc.

Articles

Composition of Human Thrombus Assessed by Quantitative Colorimetric Angioscopic Analysis

Kenneth G. Lehmann, MD; Robert J. van Suylen, MD; Jeane Stibbe, MD; Cornelis J. Slager, MSc; Jan A. Oomen, MSc; Arthur Maas, MD; Carlo di Mario, MD, PhD; Pim deFeyter, MD, PhD; ; Patrick W. Serruys, MD, PhD

From The Thoraxcenter and Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and the University of Washington School of Medicine & VA Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle.

Correspondence to Kenneth G. Lehmann, MD, Section of Cardiology (111C), Seattle Veterans Affairs Medical Center, 1660 S Columbian Way, Seattle, WA 98108.

Background Angioscopy surpasses other diagnostic tools, such as angiography and intravascular ultrasound, in detecting arterial thrombus. This capability arises in part from the unique ability of angioscopy to assess true color during imaging. In practice, hardware-induced chromatic distortions and the subjectivity of human color perception substantially limit the theoretic potential of angioscopic color. We used a novel application of tristimulus colorimetry to quantify thrombus color to both aid in its detection and assess its composition.

Methods and Results A series of human thrombus models were constructed in vitro. Spatial homogeneity was ensured by light and electron microscopy. Quantitative colorimetric angioscopic analysis demonstrated excellent measurement reproducibility (mean difference, 0.07% to 0.17%), unaffected by illuminating light intensity (coefficient of variation, 0.21% to 3.67%). Colorimetric parameters C₁ and C₂ were strongly correlated (r=.99, P<.0001) with thrombus erythrocyte concentration. Principal components analysis transformed these parameters into a single value, the thrombus erythrocyte index, with little (0.06%) loss of content. Measured and predicted concentrations were similar (mean difference, 0.16 erythrocytes per 1 ng). Randomly ordered images were also subjected to visual analysis by three experienced angioscopists, with suboptimal levels of both intraobserver (mean =0.63) and interobserver (mean =0.48) agreement. In addition, visual ranking resulted in a Kendall rank coefficient of 0.72 to 0.76 versus a perfect 1.00 from quantitative measurement.

Conclusions Quantitative colorimetric angioscopic analysis provides a new, objective, and reproducible analytic tool for assessing angioscopic images of human thrombus. Even under ideal circumstances, experienced angioscopists do a poor job of assessing color (and therefore composition) of human thrombi. This technique can, for the first time, provide quantitative information of thrombus composition during routine diagnostic imaging.

Key Words: thrombus • diagnosis • fibrin

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