Intravascular Imaging

Limitations of angiography, the traditional invasive method for assessing vascular pathology, have led to an interest in alternative invasive techniques that visualize the arterial wall and allow characterization of plaque type. These alternative techniques, which include intravascular ultrasound, angioscopy, thermography, optical coherence tomography, near infrared spectroscopy, and intravascular magnetic resonance imaging are able to provide valuable information regarding plaque vulnerability, the composition of plaque, and luminal morphology. Intravascular Imaging: Current Applications and Research Developments presents all available intravascular imaging techniques and analyzes their impact in clinical practice and research. This publication aims to inform medical specialists, biomedical engineers, bioinfomaticians, and researchers of current developments and future trends in intravascular imaging techniques, promoting continued evolution of this discipline.

Vasilios D. Tsakanikas was born on 1st of January of 1983 in Agrinio, Greece. He graduated from the 1st High School of Agrinio in 2000. He received the Diploma Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2005 from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece. In his thesis, he performed an analysis of the established link between terminal mobile communication devices and users' heads, utilizing the F.D.T.D. (Finite Difference Time Domain) numerical method. He received a M.Sc. in Computer Science from the Athens University of Economics and Business, Department of Informatics, Greece in 2007. Today, he is working as Software Engineer on several biomedical projects.

Lampros K. Michalis was born in Arta, Greece, in 1960. He received the M.D. degree with Distinction from the University of Athens Medical School, Greece in 1984 and in 1989, he was awarded his M.D. Thesis with Distinction also from the University of Athens Medical School. He has been fully trained in clinical and interventional cardiology in the United Kingdom. Since 1995 he has been with the University of Ioannina Medical School, Ioannina, Greece, where he is a Professor of Cardiology. His research interests focus on interventional cardiology, intravascular imaging, percutaneous treatment of peripheral arterial disease, bioengineering and diagnosis and prevention of preclinical arteriosclerosis.

Dimitrios I. Fotiadis received the Diploma degree in Chemical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece, in 1985 and the Ph.D. degree in Chemical Engineering and Materials Science from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, in 1990. He is currently a Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Director of the Unit of Medical Technology and Intelligent Information Systems, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece. He was a Visiting Researcher at the RWTH, Aachen, Germany and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, MA. He has authored or coauthored more than 130 papers in scientific journals, 270 papers in peer-reviewed conference proceedings and more than 25 chapters in books. He is the Editor of 16 books. His research interests include modeling of human tissues and organs, intelligent wearable devices for automated diagnosis and bioinformatics. He is IEEE senior member, Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions of Information Technology in Biomedicine and participates in the organisation of several international conferences. Prof. Fotiadis coordinates several R&D projects funded by the EC and other bodies.

Katerina K. Naka received the M.D. degree with distinction from the University of Ioannina Medical School, Ioannina, Greece and the Ph.D. degree in Cardiology from the University of Wales College of Medicine, Cardiff, Wales, U.K in 2003. She is fully trained in cardiology and since 2006, she has been with the University of Ioannina Medical School, Ioannina, Greece, where she is currently an Assistant Professor of Cardiology. Her research interests include vascular endothelial function, large arterial mechanics, heart failure, echocardiography, intravascular ultrasound and bioengineering.

Christos V. Bourantas graduated from the Medical School, University of Ioannina, Greece in 1999 and 6 years later, he was awarded with distinction for his PhD degree in Cardiology from the same Medical School. He completed his training in Cardiology in UK and he is currently working as a Fellow in interventional cardiology in East Yorkshire NHS Trust, UK. His research interests include image processing, 3D modeling, invasive imaging and cardiac MRI. He is an Honorary Lecturer in the Department of Academic Cardiology Hull University, Kingston upon Hull, UK.