2008 Volume 29 Issue 2 Pages 95-100
Though endoscopy has made a rapid progress in diagnoses in gastrointestinal (GI) diseases with the introduction of chromoscopy and magnifying endoscopy, a definite diagnosis should wait for a histopathology of the specimens biopsied during endoscopy. As a real time and less invasive method to obtain a definite diagnosis during GI endoscopy, optical biopsy using tissue spectroscopy technology has been under development. We made a feasibility study on how to establish endoscopic histopathology in combination with tissue spectroscopy. We used elastic scattering spectroscopy for taking spectra of tissues in the GI diseases and made analyses and comparisons of the spectra between normal and abnormal tissues. Patients underwent biopsies and optical biopsies during the same session of endoscopy. We compared the histopathological results with the spectra taken. The spectra taken in Barrett′s carcinoma, Barrett′s epithelium, and the normal gastric mucosa were peculiar to each. We expect that optical biopsy using elastic scattering spectroscopy will be a powerful tool for endoscopic histopathology when tissue scattering spectra data backed up by histopathology are accumulated and diagnostic software are established by the multiple endoscopic centers.
