Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan.
Med Eng Phys. 2011 Mar;33(2):174-9. doi: 10.1016/j.medengphy.2010.09.015. Epub 2010 Oct 20.
One of the greatest difficulties in endoscopic surgery is the limited field-of-view (FOV) of endoscopes. During endoscopic manipulation in body cavities to expand the FOV, there is the risk of inadvertent damage to body tissues, nerves, and internal organs. The risk increases especially in surgery that is performed inside a very small cavity, or in which body tissues are very fragile. To overcome these issues, we developed a novel endoscope that can provide various FOVs without moving or bending the endoscope itself inside the body cavity and investigated the feasibility of using the new endoscope in vivo. A beam splitter was used to visualize both forward and side views, and two polarization plates and observation windows were used to avoid overlap of the two views. An endoscope having a 7-mm diameter was fabricated through which both views were clearly visualized in vivo. It took only 0.7s to change the FOV with high repeatability, with a maximum distance error of 2.8%. The new endoscope can provide forward and panoramic views without moving the endoscope; therefore, the risk of inadvertent damage to fragile body tissues can be significantly decreased.
内窥镜手术的最大困难之一是内窥镜的视场有限。在内窥镜操作过程中，为了扩大视场，存在无意损伤体组织、神经和内脏器官的风险。当手术在非常小的腔体内进行，或体组织非常脆弱时，风险会增加。为了克服这些问题，我们开发了一种新型内窥镜，可以在不移动或弯曲内窥镜本身的情况下提供各种视场，并研究了在体内使用新型内窥镜的可行性。采用分光镜来实现前向和侧视观察，使用两个偏光板和观察窗来避免两个视图的重叠。制作了一个直径为 7 毫米的内窥镜，通过该内窥镜可以清楚地在体内观察到两个视图。改变视场的时间仅需 0.7 秒，具有很高的可重复性，最大距离误差为 2.8%。新型内窥镜无需移动内窥镜即可提供前向和全景视图，因此可以显著降低对脆弱体组织的无意损伤风险。
