Coronary arteries are responsible for delivering blood to the myocardium and therefore are of vital importance. Coronary arteries are prone to atherosclerosis, which is a chronic inflammatory disease of the arterial wall that progressively reduces the lumen size as a consequence of plaque formation. The so-called ‘‘hemodynamic hypothesis” suggests that local hemodynamics is a main factor of the onset and progression of atherosclerotic lesions at coronary arteries. This thesis project is focused on the in vitro quantitative evaluation of the local hemodynamics arising within realistic coronary artery phantoms. In the present thesis, the results of two optical velocity measurement techniques, Particle Tracking Velocimetry (PTV) and Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), are compared in a phantom (scale 1:1) of the left circumflex coronary artery (LCX).