Detection of vulnerable plaques rather than the culprit lesions in patients with acute coronary syndrome using virtual histology intravascular ultrasound imaging

Pathology and postmortem studies have reported thatthe most important mechanism of acute coronarysyndrome (ACS) is the rupture of a vulnerable plaque andsubsequent thrombus formation.Such events commonlyarise from the non-flow limiting atherosclerotic lesionswhich are prone to rupture.Thin-cap fibroatheromas(TCFA) are the most common type of vulnerable plaque.As the widely used technique for the detection ofcoronary arterial diseases,coronary angiography hasintrinsic limitations since it only portrays the contrastagent-filled contour of the lumen and provides little