University of Florida News

Smart scope video

Supers: UF/Gainesville
Huikai Xie/UF engineer

A NEW TWIST ON A COMMON MEDICAL TOOL COULD MEAN MORE EFFICIENT SURGERIES AND MORE COMFORT FOR PATIENTS. UNIVERSITY
OF FLORIDA RESEARCHERS HAVE DEVELOPED AN ENDOSCOPE BUILT WITH TINY MIRRORS MOVING INSIDE. CURRENTLY, DOCTORS MUST PHYSICALLY TWIST THE SCOPE IN THE PATIENT.

Huikai Xie/UF engineer: “They have to rely on spinning a long wire, to get the image scanning, but in our technology, we just manipulate the light in free space.”

THE MIRRORS WORK WITH INFRARED LIGHT TO SCAN 40 DEGREES BACK AND FORTH IN THE SCOPE. THAT GIVES DOCTORS AN INSTANT IMAGE AND MORE.

Huikai Xie/UF engineer: “It’s a technology which can see under skin, so it can see depths of information, not just the surface.”

EXPERTS SAY ENDOSCOPES CAPTURING A DEEPER PICTURE COULD ELIMINATE THE NEED FOR BIOPSIES… AND LEAD TO EARLIER CANCER DETECTION. AT THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA, I’M JENNI GEIB.

Note: Downloadable videos are encoded at 720x486 using the Photo-JPEG codec. Audio is encoded at 44.1 kHz and unmixed.