Patent ID: 8452371

Claim:
A method for imaging a blood vessel having a wall defining a lumen in a subject, the method comprising: guiding a transducer attached to a catheter inserted into the blood vessel to a first site within the blood vessel, wherein the first site is distal to a region of interest, the region of interest having a side branch joined to the wall; moving the catheter to a second site proximal to the first site at a speed selected to enable the transducer to generate a signal indicative of a geometry of the wall, the lumen, and a portion of the side branch; generating frames showing portions of the wall, the portions being located within the region of interest; reconstructing an image of the lumen of the blood vessel by stacking together successive frames to form a cast of the blood vessel; compensating for any relative rotation between successive images caused by bending or torsion of the catheter to produce a corrected cast of the blood vessel that is corrected for relative orientation; overlaying an angiogram and the corrected cast; and orienting the corrected cast such that the portion of the side branch in the corrected cast aligns with a corresponding portion of the side branch in the angiogram to provide an image of the blood vessel that is corrected for relative orientation and absolute orientation with respect to a coordinate system of the patient.