Development of a Flexible Infrared Imaging Endoscope

描述（由申请人提供）： Advanced Medical Electronics（AME）提出开发一种基于柔性红外微测辐射热计的内窥镜，用于外科热治疗期间准确测量组织温度。第二阶段的主要目标是创建有史以来最小的远红外相机，以提供实时空间准确的二维表面温度测量从内窥镜的远端。申报的柔性内窥镜将用于微创经皮热治疗癌症肿瘤期间腹部的视觉热成像，以及表面组织疾病（即食管静脉曲张）的内窥镜热治疗。新的医疗技术，例如集中的射频能量，可以有效地治疗肿瘤和表面组织疾病。这些技术需要非常准确地测量相邻表面组织的温度，以便安全有效地应用。所提出的系统使用一种新的可用的红外（IR）传感技术，称为微测辐射热计，再加上一个国家的最先进的包装技术，使这些所需的测量在内窥镜的尖端，并提出了信息，以外科医生在实时使用假彩色显示。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Advanced Medical Electronics (AME) proposes to develop a flexible infrared microbolometer based endoscope for use during surgical heat treatments to accurately measure tissue temperatures. The primary phase II goal is to create the smallest far-infrared camera ever developed to provide real-time spatially accurate two-dimensional surface temperature measurements from the distal tip of an endoscope. The proposed flexible endoscope will be used for both visual thermal imaging in the abdomen during percutaneous thermal treatment of cancer tumors with minimal invasiveness and for endoscopic thermal treatment of surface tissue diseases (i.e. esophageal varices). New medical technologies involving for example concentrated RF energy, can effectively treat tumors and surface tissue diseases. These techniques require a very accurate measure of adjacent surface tissue temperatures for safe and effective application. The proposed system uses a newly available infrared (IR) sensing technology called a microbolometer coupled with a state-of-the-art packaging technique to make these required measurements at the tip of an endoscope and present the information to a surgeon in real-time using a false color display.