Development of a Flexible Infrared Imaging Endoscope

描述(由申请人提供)： 先进医疗电子公司(AME)建议开发一种基于柔性红外微测辐射热计的内窥镜，用于外科热疗期间准确测量组织温度。第二阶段的主要目标是创造出有史以来最小的远红外相机，从内窥镜的远端提供实时、空间上精确的二维表面温度测量。拟议的柔性内窥镜将用于经皮肿瘤微创热治疗期间腹部的视觉热成像，以及表面组织疾病(即食道静脉曲张)的内窥镜热疗。例如，涉及集中射频能量的新医疗技术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邻近表面组织的温度，才能安全有效地应用。该系统使用一种新的红外线(IR)传感技术，称为微测辐射热计，并结合最先进的封装技术，在内窥镜的尖端进行这些必要的测量，并使用假彩色显示器将信息实时呈现给外科医生。

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.