Endoscopic advance improves diagnoses
New endoscopic technology that combines with ultrasound is helping doctors at a public hospital make more accurate diagnoses.
Pok Oi Hospital in Yuen Long has sharply reduced the need for elderly patients to undergo surgery, said Dr Lawrence Lai Siu-wing, a gastroenterologist.
Earlier endoscopes enabled doctors to view internal organs clearly, but doctors could not take samples immediately and directly from the affected area, he said.
The new machine, with the addition of ultrasound, allows doctors to take samples from even the most inaccessible parts of the body. The ultrasound images are more accurate since they are taken inside the body.
Painkillers can be directly injected into the affected area of final-phase cancer patients using this endoscope, reducing the dosage required, Lai said. Using a traditional CT scan to detect cancer cells is only 65 per cent accurate, but the accuracy of endoscopic ultrasound can be up to 95 per cent.
While previous endoscopes were normally used in the digestive system, Lai said the new technology could be applied to the respiratory system to detect lung cancer.
Another new technology the hospital has adopted is a capsule endoscope, where a patient swallows a capsule containing a camera.
This procedure was used on an 80-year-old woman who had blood in her stool. Doctors could not detect the source using traditional endoscopies and she was ultimately diagnosed with tuberculosis by using a capsule endoscope.
Since the hospital adopted the technology in 2007, more than 500 patients have undergone endoscopic checks. The number of traditional endoscopies performed dropped from 4,000 to 3,000 last year. The waiting time for endoscopic ultrasounds dropped from 12 weeks in 2007 to four weeks last year.
But Lai said such checks were not suitable for everyone.
"Eligible patients are either too old or too sick to undergo conventional surgery, or we need to take samples from an inaccessible area, or we are unable to determine the source of sickness by any other means," he said.
A 65-year-old man had one litre of fluid pumped out of his body using the technology last September. He had diabetes and was considered unsuitable for conventional surgery. "Luckily there is this new technology, otherwise it could take a long time to recover if my body was cut open."
Source: http://www.scmp.com
