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A new piece of medical equipment used by doctors to see inside the tiniest of arteries, called IVUS , has made its Ontario debut at Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital in Windsor.

The Integrated Intravascular Ultrasound System ( IVUS ) is a catheter-based system that lets doctors acquire images of the inside of diseased, narrowing or blocked blood vessels. A tiny ultrasound sensor inserted into the blood vessels sends the images, which are projected onto a computer screen that doctors can look at.

It's especially useful in angioplasty, a surgical procedure to repair or unblock a blood vessel.

"What it really does is allow us to see inside the artery to more accurately determine the severity of the narrowing," said Dr. Amr Morsi, the medical director of the hospital's Cath Lab and Angioplasty Program.

IVUS can help differentiate between the four types of plaque that builds up in arteries: fibrous, fibro-fatty, necrotic core and dense calcium.

And it can also "more accurately guide the implant of stents in angioplasty" if required, Morsi said.

The new tool costs $200,000, plus $800 per sensor per patient.