Development of a Real-Time Multimodal 3D Endoscope for Detection of Various Gastric Lesions

Abstract

We built a multimodal endoscopic imaging system capable of fluorescence intensity, reflec-tance/fluorescence multi-spectral, and real-time 3-dimensional (3D) stereoscopic imaging for detection of gastric lesions. The system consists of two fiber bundles where GRIN Lens are attached to the end of them for collection of light from a region of interest, an objective lens for relaying of the collected light into a high sensitive CCD camera, optical bandpass filters included in a filter wheel, a servo-motor for selection of the bandpass filter, a beamsplitter, and etc. Also, a system control program was developed in order to perform fluorescence, multispectral, and 3-D stereoscopic imaging. Moreover, an ultrasound biomicroscopic system was developed for acquisition of a B-mode ultrasound image of a gastric lesion. It will be incorporated with the multimodal endoscopic system we developed. The capability of each imaging modality was here evalu-ated with tissue phantoms and then it was applied to image GI tumors ex-vivo in order to investigate its po-tential to discriminate between tumors and normal regions. The images obtained using each imaging modali-ty showed that the tumor regions were clearly distinguished from the normal regions. Altogether, our devel-oped system here allowed to obtain different but complementary information on lesions of interest such as auto-fluorescence intensity, spectral signatures, 3D surface curvatures and invasion depth of the lesions, thus may enhance the contrast in the early detection of gastric lesions. ⓒ 2016 DGIST