Introducing a new generation of robotic single-use colonoscopes

早期发现对于提高结直肠疾病（包括癌症，全球每年有超过88.1万人死亡）和炎症性肠病（影响数百万人）的生存率至关重要。使用灵活的内窥镜进行结肠镜检查是识别疾病和进行小手术干预的最佳方法。不幸的是，它也有明显的缺点：患者痛苦，操作员需要长时间的培训，技术，人员和专业基础设施的高成本。这有许多影响，包括有限的程序可及性，导致对结肠镜检查的无限制需求和经济负担。在英国，25%的患者等待4周以上才进行结肠镜检查，即使在家检查结果呈阳性，每10个人中就有2个人不进行结肠镜检查。美国预防服务工作组的指南建议从45岁开始进行结肠镜检查，而不是50岁，这加剧了这种情况，仅在美国，潜在的筛查人群就增加到4400万人。Atlas内窥镜旨在通过引入REN平台——一个由机器人和一次性内窥镜组成的磁性结肠镜系统，彻底改变结肠镜检查。我们的使命是通过让人们更容易接受结肠镜检查来拯救生命。我们将通过改进传统柔性内窥镜的缺点来做到这一点。经过15年的学术研究，30多篇同行评议论文（包括《自然》和《科学》），广泛的临床前测试和衍生产品的创建，Atlas Endoscopy准备将该研究转化为产品，创造有效和安全地在医院部署REN所需的技术，以造福患者、临床医生和更广泛的医疗保健系统。这笔拨款对于提高技术成熟度、为安全有效的临床使用系统做准备、设计一种设备和可持续的制造过程、减少净浪费、为NHS和英国经济创造效益至关重要。

Early detection is crucial to improve survival from colorectal diseases, including cancer with over 881000 deaths/year globally) and inflammatory bowel diseases (affecting millions). Colonoscopy, performed using a flexible endoscope, is the best method to identify disease and perform minor surgical interventions. Unfortunately, it comes with notable drawbacks: patient pain, long training required for operators and high costs from the technology, staffing & specialised infrastructure. This has a number of impacts including limited procedure accessibility, resulting in uncurbed demand for colonoscopy and economic burden. In the UK, 25% of patients wait more than 4 weeks to have their colonoscopy and 2 in 10 individuals are not attending colonoscopies even if tested positive by at-home tests. This is exacerbated by US Preventive Services Task Force guidelines recommending screening colonoscopy to begin at 45 instead of 50 years of age, increasing the potential screening population to 44 million individuals, in the US alone. Atlas Endoscopy aims at revolutionising colonoscopy by introducing the REN platform - a magnetic colonoscopy system composed of a robot and a single-use endoscope. Our mission is to save lives by making colonoscopy more accessible to the population. We will do this by improving on the drawbacks of conventional flexible endoscopes. After 15 years of academic research, more than 30 peer reviewed papers (including Nature and Science), extensive pre-clinical testing and the creation of a spin-off, Atlas Endoscopy is ready to transform that research into a product, creating the technology required to effectively and safely deploy REN in hospitals for the benefit of patients, clinicians and the wider healthcare system. This grant funding will be essential to increase the technology maturity, preparing the system for safe and effective clinical use, designing a device and sustainable manufacturing process that reduce net waste and creates benefit for NHS and UK economy.