Intra-cardiac Side-Firing Light Catheter for Monitoring Cellular Metabolism using Transmural Absorbance Spectroscopy of Perfused Mammalian Hearts

Here we introduce a method for using an intra-ventricle optical catheter in perfused hearts to perform absorbance spectroscopy across the heart wall. The data obtained provides robust information on tissue oxygen tension as well as substrate utilization and membrane potential simultaneously with cardiac performance measures in this ubiquitous preparation.