Fibre Optic Endoscopy

What is Endoscopy

The word endoscopy is a medical term that means the process of seeing and examining the various internal organs of an animal body. In Greek, the word ‘endo’ means ‘inside’, and ‘skein’ means ‘to see’. A brief history of the endoscope narrates that at first, a narrow tube used to be inserted inside the body but for more clear visual examination in later years crude attempts were made to illuminate the inside of the body by introducing oil lamps and with further advancement small electric filament bulbs. Though the electric filament bulbs were found to be quite effective in illuminating the internal organs for clear examination the bulb was found to be generating a considerable amount of heat.

Fiber Optic Endoscopy

• In a Fiber optic endoscope bundles of glass, fibers are used to transmit the rays to and from the organs so that physicians can visualize the internal organs of the animal body.
• The physicians can see the internal organs as the working of the fiber optic endoscopy is based on the principle of total internal reflection of light where 100% of the light that was transmitted from the source to the organs reflects.
• The fibers are made up of a special type of glass and the each of then each of them is coated with another glass of a different refractive index.
• Special attention is given to the orientation of the fibers with one another in the bundle so that they are ‘coherent’. For an endoscope, the ‘spatial orientation’ among each of the thousand fibers should be equal and not like the fibers that are tangled with one another in a rope.
• Every endoscope has two bundles of fibers. One bundle of fibers transmits light to the internal organs while the other bundle receives the light and transmits all the rays of light to the eye of the examiner.
• The fiber optic endoscope is portable and available in varied sizes but in most cases, it requires an additional attachable CCD camera to increase the video capability of the instrument.

The endoscope allows the veterinarian to examine your cat’s internal structures and organs. Endoscopy is a fast, safe diagnostic procedure that allows direct observation.

A tube attached to a fiber optic light source and lenses for magnification is inserted into the body. Small tweezers (forceps) can be attached to the end of the tube for taking tissue specimens for microscopic study and cultures.

Your doctor may find the endoscope helpful for the detection of a suspected foreign body (hairball, bone) in the esophagus, stomach, or colon; direct examination of the upper or lower gastrointestinal tract or the breathing tubes (trachea and bronchi); reproductive evaluation by direct examination of the ovaries, vagina, and uterus.

A sedative or general anesthesia is required. The name of the specific procedure indicates what will be viewed with the scope: arthropod (joints), a bronchoscope (trachea and bronchi), colons (colon), cysts (bladder, urethra, and renters), gastronomy (esophagus, stomach, and duodenum first part of the small intestine), laparoscopy (the outer surface of the abdominal organs, such as the ovaries for infertility evaluation).

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