Intracoronary thermography: heat generation, transfer and detection.

Intracoronary thermography is a potential vulnerable plaque detection technique of which the development is ongoing. This review discusses the past and present status of this technique from a more fundamental perspective, in which heat generation, heat transfer and heat detection are considered. Details of the presumed heat source, the macrophage clusters in vulnerable, atherosclerotic plaques, are discussed, including their increased energy consumption and heat production values. Heat transfer by ways of conduction, convection by blood flow and radiation are considered in a quantitative way. Ways to detect heat that are currently used are discussed and suggestions for improvement as well as for utilization of unexplored possibilities are given. This review enables interpretation of previously published results and likely also of results to be published in the future.