by
Gus Iversen, Editor in Chief | February 27, 2015
From the January/February 2015 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
The more cameras the better
Quality measures aside, new tools from the major manufacturers are also contributing to better patient outcomes. Doyle says his company’s EVIS EXERA III has been shown in some studies to detect polyps at double the rate of the standard accepted threshold. It is also proven to provide faster insertion into the colon and therefore may lead to increased throughput while minimizing anesthesia requirements.
On the miniaturization front, more imagers are enabling a wider angle of view, and additional cameras are being fixed to the scopes. “It’s about seeing more,” says EndoChoice’s Ladd, “You can’t fix a problem you can’t see.”
The latest suite of equipment from EndoChoice, the second generation of their Fuse system, features a three-camera colonoscope and a two-camera gastroscope presented on a widescreen 4K Ultra HD monitor. “In three to five years, will anyone buy a single camera scope for upper or lower flexible endoscopy? I can’t comprehend that happening,” says Ladd.
Dr. Lewis echoes that sentiment, “Having three cameras will be the way of the future. All manufacturers will move to this technology because you can see more.” And while some companies are beginning to offer 3-D tools, Ladd questions the ratio of cost-to-benefit. “The challenge of today’s 3-D technology is that it requires the doctor to wear different glasses,” he says. Those glasses, coupled with the need for specific viewing angles, are principal drawbacks to 3-D.
“And being able to see in 3-D does not necessarily increase ability to find something,” says Ladd. Despite his skepticism, he did allude to some 3-D developments at EndoChoice that he was not at liberty to discuss. Wetter, of the Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons, looks at 3-D as one part of a much bigger picture. “It’s really an improvement in visualization— and that’s computer driven.” He expects that kind of computer assisted procedure to become more and more standard going forward.
Ladd notices another overarching trend in the next generation of scopes, “As microchip technology and lighting technology gets better, working channels will get larger, enabling clinicians to get larger tools that allow them to do more through their endoscopes.” A greater channel allows for more versatile clips. As one example, “If a doctor is looking at an aggressive upper GI bleeder, or they did a polypectomy and got a very large open defect in the mucosa as a result of it, you don’t really have a good way to close that with today’s clips,” says Ladd.
