Flexible Endoscopy

Advancements in flexible endoscopy have rapidly progressed this technology to the next level of sophistication. Complex endoscopes and accessories have expanded the capabilities of performing surgery and treatments in a less invasive manner.

A flexible endoscope is like a Swiss Army knife that is brilliantly designed into a compact device that includes a suction channel, light and image guides, irrigation channels, and biopsy channels capable of passing instruments through.

Four Major Flexible Endoscope Structures

• Control body

• Insertion tube

• Bending section/distal tip

• Light guide connector

Also within the flexible endoscope are three systems that may extend from one component area to another. These systems include:

• A mechanical system(i.e., the angulation system that allows the distal tip to be rotated in different directions so that the target site can be optimally visualized);

• Plumbing system(i.e., water can be conducted to the target site for irrigation while suction can be activated to remove excess fluids, air, or surgical smoke);

• Illumination system(i.e., conducts the image back to the eyepiece or monitor so that diagnostic and/or therapeutic procedures can be performed or treatments can be provided).

Rigid endoscopes are the oldest endoscopy equipment for sale on the market. They are used in the majority of surgical endoscopic applications and enable endoscopists to visualize the surface of organs, their vessels, or pathological changes without large incisions of the body and deliver a view even more clear than with the naked eye. The main design criteria are the viewing angle, depth-of-field, magnification, image brightness, image quality, distortion, and image size, which have to be appropriately balanced.

Rigid endoscopes are commonly used in minimally invasive surgical procedures like rhinoscopy (nose), cystoscopy (urinary bladder), and laparoscopy (abdomen). Rigid endoscopes are made of metal tubes that contain the lenses, and the light channel(s) and are available in a large range of external diameters, from 1 to 12 mm.

Commonly, rigid endoscopes have a series of high-resolution optical glass rod lenses. The endoscopes can be forward-viewing (0 degrees) or angled (10–120 degrees) to allow visualization out of the axis of the telescope and increase the FOV by rotating the instrument. The optical quality of lens-generated images of rigid endoscopes still surpasses that of the fiber-optic or digital images produced by flexible scopes.