Patent ID: 8588891

Claim:
A wave-based imaging method of characterizing a plaque, comprising: inserting a catheter into an artery; directing one or more predetermined energy waves radially outward and receiving one or more radial scattered energy waves from a distal end of said catheter; collecting a radial scattered tomographic data baseline of said artery's tissue; measuring an applied external pressure to said artery; obtaining a deformation radial scattered tomographic data set of said artery's tissue after application of said external pressure; and processing said radial scattered tomographic data baseline and said deformation radial reflected tomographic data set to produce a final image indicating elasticity of said artery to characterize said plaque, wherein said processing includes application of a wave-based algorithm that can map an angular location and a plurality of frequency parameters of said received scattered energy waves, wherein said wave-based algorithm comprises a Hilbert space inverse wave (HSIW) algorithm.