Since its inception, endoscopy has aimed to establish an immediate diagnosis that is virtually consistent with a histologic diagnosis. In the past decade, confocal laser scanning microscopy has been brought into endoscopy, thus enabling in vivo microscopic tissue visualization with a magnification and resolution comparable to that obtained with the ex vivo microscopy of histological specimens. The major challenge in the development of instrumentation lies in the miniaturization of a fiber-optic probe for microscopic imaging with micron-scale resolution. Here, we present the design and construction of a confocal endoscope based on a fiber bundle with 1.4-μm lateral resolution and 8-frames per second(fps) imaging speed. The fiber-optic probe has a diameter of 2.6 mm that is compatible with the biopsy channel of a conventional endoscope. The prototype of a confocal endoscope has been used to observe epithelial cells of the gastrointestinal tracts of mice and will be further demonstrated in clinical trials. In addition, the confocal endoscope can be used for translational studies of epithelial function in order to monitor how molecules work and how cells interact in their natural environment.
Jiafu WangMin YangLi YangYun ZhangJing YuanQian LiuXiaohua HouLing Fu
The subtle color distinction is the important function of electronic endoscope imaging diagnosis.However,after image acquisition,transmission and display,color distortions of intracorporeal organs or tissues occur inevitably,which are adverse to analyze image features accurately or to diagnose early pathological changes.A real-time color correction algorithm based on fourneighborhood and polynomial regression in YUV color space is proposed.Based on polynomial regression the color correction matrix is calculated in YUV color space according to the dierences between standard values of color checker and measured values of that imaged by the endoscope.As the correction is only executed on U and V components in YUV color space,the defect that the color of corrected images in RGB color space will change along with luminance can be avoided,and then the stability of image color is improved.Owing to four-neighborhood processing,the signal-to-noise ratio of corrected images is enhanced and the processing speed of correction algorithm is accelerated.The average color dierence is reduced from 0.3944 to 0.2850 by application of the proposed algorithm in high-denition electronic endoscope.A total of 17 frames per second can be achieved at the resolution of 1280800,and the color characteristics of the image after processing match that of human visual system.
