Signal attenuation and box-counting fractal analysis of optical coherence tomography images of arterial tissue.

The sensitivity of optical coherence tomography images to sample morphology is tested by two methods. The first method estimates the attenuation of the OCT signal from various regions of the probed tissue. The second method uses a box-counting algorithm to calculate the fractal dimensions in the regions of interest identified in the images. Although both the attenuation coefficient as well as the fractal dimension correlate very well with the anatomical features of the probed samples; the attenuation method provides a better sensitivity. Two types of samples are used in this study: segments of arteries collected from atherosclerosis-prone Watanabe rabbits (WHHL-MI) and healthy segments of porcine coronary arteries.