Some believe the optical coherence tomography (OCT) scope may be this year's biggest endoscopy equipment news. OCT has proven to be of considerable use due to its ability to non-destructively acquire images below the surface of tissue.

"The majority of cancers start about 2 mm below the surface in the epithelium. Scopes today only show a surface picture, they don't reveal what's going on under the surface where tumor development begins," says Scott Townsend, managing partner of Townsend Surgical LLC. "Instead of using a camera, an OCT scope shoots a laser beam to the target tissue. The light that is reflected back produces a 3-D picture. Cancerous tissue reflects light differently than normal tissue and can thus be detected before it manifests on the surface."

The thing is, OCT for endoscopy is currently under patent from two Louisiana State University professors, Martin Feldman and DooYoung Hah, and none of the major manufacturers has made claim to it yet.




"The design is ready and we expect it to be huge," Townsend says. "Everyone in the industry has been keeping an eye on this and someone will definitely pick it up and market it soon."

Endoscopic OCT systems will lead to better medical outcomes in two ways: they reduce the number of cases where biopsies are required and they make biopsies more accurate. OCT probes can also serve as a diagnostic tool to determine disease progression and be functional as a surgical guidance system.

Another huge development in the industry is that Olympus Medical Systems Corp and Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics are co-developing a capsule endoscope that will have its movement in a stomach controlled by magnetic guidance.

According to Dr. Brian Muska, an endoscopy specialist at St. Alexius Medical Center in Illinois, this magnetically guided capsule endoscope system would allow a stomach examination to be done comfortably by having the patient swallow an endoscope in the form of a capsule. Once taken, a patient would simply lie down in a magnetic guidance system and using a joystick-like tool, the specialist will then be able to navigate the capsule easily to the areas of interest and then the capsule will provide real-time, high-resolution images on a display in the examination room.

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