Work

Scanning fiber endoscopy with highly flexible, 1 mm catheterscopes for wide‐field, full‐color imaging

Year: 2010

Type: review

Abstract: In modern endoscopy, wide field of view and full color are considered necessary for navigating inside the body, inspecting tissue for disease and guiding interventions such as biopsy or surgery. Current flexible endoscope technologies suffer from reduced resolution when device diameter shrinks. Endoscopic procedures today, using coherent fiber-bundle technology on the scale of 1 mm, are performed with such poor image quality that the clinician's vision meets the criteria for legal blindness. Here, we review a new and versatile scanning fiber-imaging technology and describe its implementation for ultrathin and flexible endoscopy. This scanning fiber endoscope (SFE) or catheterscope enables high-quality, laser-based, video imaging for ultrathin clinical applications, while also providing new options for in vivo biological research of subsurface tissue and high resolution fluorescence imaging.

Source: Journal of Biophotonics

DOI: 10.1002/jbio.200900087

Authors: Cameron M. Lee, Christoph J. Engelbrecht, Timothy D. Soper, Fritjof Helmchen, Eric J. Seibel

Institutions: University of Washington, University of Zurich

Language: English

Topic: Random lasers and scattering media

Subfield: Acoustics and Ultrasonics

Field: Physics and Astronomy

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: green

Funders: U.S. Public Health Service, National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering