Modular Robotic Scanning Device for Real-Time Gastric Endomicroscopy

摘要

Optical biopsy methods, such as probe-based endomicroscopy, can be used for the identification of early mucosal dysplasia in various gastrointestinal conditions and have potential applications in the screening of early-stage gastric cancer in vivo. However, it is difficult to scan a large area of the gastric mucosa for mosaicing during standard endoscopy. This paper proposes a novel snap-on' robotic scanning device that can integrate distally with a commercial endoscope. A customized low-cost endomicroscopy system is used for obtaining micro imaging. The developed device could scan a large area of gastric tissue during standard endoscopy. The device achieves positioning accuracy that is less than 0.23mm. Experimental results showed that the device could achieve large area mosaicing (15.8-18.6mm(2)) and demonstrated the potential clinical value of the device for real-time gastric tissue identification and margin assessment. This approach presents an important alternative to current histology techniques for gastrointestinal tract diagnosis.