New imaging technology allows scientists to peer even deeper into fatty arteries

No idea what would be done if fatty arteries were found, but it sounds good for us.
http://www.mdlinx.com/internal-medicine/top-medical-news/article/2016/05/20/3
Researchers demonstrate how a highly–sensitive photoacoustic catheter probe has the potential to help better identify heart disease.
A new imaging system known as intravascular photoacoustic (IVPA) imaging that produces three–dimensional images of the insides of arteries, however, has the potential to help doctors diagnose plaques on the brink of rupturing. But scientists have struggled to develop imaging instruments that meet clinical requirements while illuminating arteries to a useful depth and at quick enough speeds. Now, a team of researchers from Purdue University, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indiana, USA and the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Shanghai, China, have improved upon previous instruments, developing a new IVPA catheter design with collinear overlap between optical and acoustic waves with a tiny probe. The design can greatly improve the sensitivity and imaging depth of IVPA imaging, revealing fatty arteries in all of their unctuous detail. IVPA imaging works by measuring ultrasound signals from molecules exposed to a light beam from a fast–pulsing laser. The new probe allows the optical beam and sound wave to share the same path all the way during imaging — that's the "collinear" overlap part — rather than cross overlap as in previous designs. This increases the sensitivity and the imaging depth of the instrument, allowing for high–quality IVPA imaging of a human coronary artery over 6 mm in depth — from the lumen, the normally open channel within arteries, to perivascular fat, which surrounds the outside of most arteries and veins. The research findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports.