Patent ID: 7927275

Claim:
A system for acquiring blood-vessel data, comprising: a data-gathering probe adapted to acquire blood-vessel data; a heart-monitoring device adapted to acquire heartbeat data; a device adapted to move said data-gathering probe continuously through a blood vessel at a substantially constant speed, wherein the data-gathering probe gathers data while being continuously moved at the substantially constant speed; and a data-gathering device connected to said data-gathering probe and said heart-monitoring device and adapted to: acquire said heartbeat data; identify a cyclical portion of said heartbeat data, said cyclical portion being substantially common to multiple sets of heartbeat data; acquire said blood-vessel data during an interval substantially corresponding to said cyclical portion of said heartbeat data, wherein the data-gathering device is adapted to acquire said blood-vessel data only during the interval while the data-gathering probe is moved continuously through the blood vessel at the substantially constant speed in response to a probe-trigger marking a beginning of the cyclical portion; and permit analysis of the blood vessel as if the blood vessel was standing still, wherein the analysis of the blood vessel is utilized to classify vascular plaque of the blood vessel.