The Digestive Endoscopy Service is of great relevance in current digestive medicine.
What is endoscopy?
Literally, endoscopy means “looking inside”.
It is a technique applicable in multiple fields of human activity, in industry and research and, of course, in medicine.
The immediate predecessors of today’s medical endoscopy were flexible fiberscopes with glass fiber technology, which began to be used in medical practice in the 1960s. Throughout the eighties, the system was improved, with the appearance of video endoscopes, from which the models we use today were developed.
These are flexible devices designed to see the inside of the human body, through natural openings (mouth, nose, anus, urethra, vagina.). In the case of digestive endoscopy, the most common is the examination of the upper digestive tract through the mouth or nose and the examination of the colon and distal part of the small intestine through colonoscopy and ileoscopy through the anus
The small intestine can be studied with an endoscopic capsule and treated with a longer enteroscope.
The endoscopes we use in our service, of the latest generation, have a lighting system using glass fiber connected to a light source and a micro-camera at the tip, type chip, which collects the image with great fidelity , transmitting it through a processor to one or more monitors and allowing photographs or video to be taken when necessary.
Endoscopes usually have a thickness between 5 and 15 mm and a length between a meter and a little over a meter and a half. They have an internal channel through which various accessories can be passed to take samples or perform therapy and are handled by the endoscopist using controls that lead to the head and allow rotation in all directions, given that they are very flexible devices.
These endoscopes incorporate multiple image processing systems, magnification or magnifying glass effect, different types of lighting and the ability to insufflate water, air or carbonic gas. Water is used to wash the lens of the apparatus or the wall of the digestive apparatus when there is debris, which can also be aspirated through the internal channel. To distend the digestive tract and be able to study it in more detail, pressurized ambient air or carbon dioxide is introduced through the endoscope. The latter is reabsorbed by the intestinal wall, with faster elimination by breathing, causing less abdominal distension than air.
The endoscope has all its internal mechanisms coated in a waterproof material similar to neoprene, which also coats the outside, making it completely watertight, so that it can undergo a thorough cleaning and disinfection process after each scan high level, which guarantees perfect asepsis.
Endoscopy has allowed the exploration of the inside of the human body through the introduction of optics to see the internal tissue. It is also possible to take biopsies to analyze and accurately determine the severity of an injury.
It is a very important diagnostic and therapeutic advance that is in continuous evolution; a technique that allows diagnostic and therapeutic endoscopies to be carried out and that has provided answers and treatment to many pathologies.
Currently there is a very high incidence of rectal and colon cancer. Endoscopic studies are essential to predict its appearance.
Endoscopy treatments can become annoying for the patient, which is why in our service they are carried out with different types of sedation to improve their tolerance.
Endoscopic procedures that we perform at Clínica ServiDigest: