An endoscopic system for the early detection of cancers of the gastrointestinal tract

Abstract

We report a compact endoscopic imaging system suitable for the early detection of cancers throughout the gastrointestinal tract. The system incorporates a three-color camera to provide a conventional color image, a mercury lamp filtered between 360 and 450 nm to excite the photosensitizer, and an intensified camera to image the resulting fluorescence at 630 nm. Our results on over 30 resected specimens show a high optical contrast between the cancerous and healthy tissue.