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Myocarditis is an inflammatory disease of the heart muscle with a variety of infectious and non-infectious causes. The gold standard for the diagnosis of myocarditis is endomyocardial biopsy, which is associated with complications and low sensitivity.

In the project, a multimodal imaging catheter is being developed for marker-free and non-destructive diagnosis of structural morphological changes in the myocardium, including myocarditis, in order to reduce the number of biopsies and define the sampling site more specifically.

The resulting multimodal probe-based platform is intended to combine optical and spectroscopic methods, i.e. optical coherence tomography, UV-excited autofluorescence and near-infrared spectroscopy, for improved diagnosis of myocarditis.

The development of the multimodal imaging catheter will reduce the diagnostic effort for myocarditis and possibly other myocardiopathies and increase the frequency of accurate diagnoses. In addition, the use of the catheter allows therapy to be monitored without taking samples. In future, doctors will be able to use the technology to provide more targeted treatment and more easily comply with the recommendation of the European Society of Cardiology regarding the diagnosis of the cause and degree of myocarditis.