電子膀胱鏡の使用経験

Abstract

通常膀胱鏡に電子内視鏡を接続した装置を電子膀胱鏡, これに画像・データ管理システムを含めて泌尿器科用画像情報システムと名付け, このシステムの研究を1989年4月より開始した.従来の肉眼的観察時の所見と比較して, 至適光量による画像は通常膀胱鏡のそれとほぼ同じであったが, 光量不足と至適光量のラティチュードが狭いために望遠像は暗かった.画像処理用あるいはファイリング用の静止画像の画質は, 不鮮明であった.しかし画像を直接電気信号に変換しているのでコンピュータに入力できることになり, 画像診断のみならず, 泌尿器科内視鏡学の進歩に寄与することが期待された

The endoscopic image processing system which has a very small change coupled device (CCD) at the distal tip of an endoscope, can give us a quite different imaging information from the conventional optical endoscopes, of which the main functions were just to "see inside the human body". The advantage of this endoscopic image processing system has been well recognized but, since the scope diameter could not be made smaller due to the size limitations of the CCD chip itself, the system has not been utilized in the field of Urology. In cooperation with Olympus Optical Co., we have studied a system called Urological Video Information System (UVIS) in order to utilize the image processing system for Urology. In our system a special light source with RGB light output is utilized together with a conventional optical cystoscope and a video converter is connected to the eyepiece of the scope in order to observe endoscopic images on the monitor. Endoscopic images can be stored in an image filing system when necessary. The image quality of UVIS is inferior to that of the conventional cystoscopes at the moment and there are several other technical problems to solve but, as witnessed in the field of Gastroenterology, it is expected that this kind of electronic system will become much more important in the future. This report covers the current problems and some considerations of them as an initial study.