Are you over 40 years old? Do you have problems with your stomach? Problems like stomach pain whenever you eat something, nausea, vomiting and something on the similar lines? Then your Doctor might have advised you to go for Endoscopy test. Then this article is for you. If you do not belong to this category, well knowledge never hurts.
What is endoscopy?
Without making the person to undergo any surgery, Special device or instrument that helps to detect and find out problems in internal organs is what is called as the endoscope. Our body has natural holes at various locations in our body this includes mouth, throat, nose, ears, anus and penis. The process of have a peek at internal organs using these natural holes is commonly called as endoscopy.
There are many types of endoscopy, but when doctor advice for endoscopy test, he usually means Gastro endoscopy.
What is Gastro Endoscopy?
Gastro Endoscopy is an instrument that is used to test throat, food pipe, stomach and intestines where food normally travels. It has a pipe that measures 1 meter in length. This pipe is flexible so it can be bent to reach different regions.
A specialized doctor will insert this pipe into the stomach through the mouth. Head part of this pipe will have a small light bulb. This bulb can be operated from outside. There will be a lens at the other end of this pipe. The doctor will make the bulb at the other end to glow and will observe and analyze the food path using the lens at the other end. This lens has the capacity to magnifying the food path several times. This will help to detect if there is any disease along the way.
What is the use?
This will help to detect damage in the stomach, problems in food pipe, tumor, bleeding, damage, blocks in small intestines and cancer. While analyzing if the doctor feels a particular part might have cancer, the instrument has the arrangement to slice out a portion of the tissue from that part. This tissue can later be sent for biopsy test. It can also collect the stomach secretions, this can be tested to find out the reason for problems in digestion.
Additionally, this test can even be used to detect the presence of Helicobacter pylori. A bacteria which is responsible for the stomach ulcer.
Endoscopy can be used to give treatment as well
Endoscopy can also be used to give treatment for some patients. Patients with liver cirrhosis and intestine damage will vomit blood and have internal bleeding. These patients can be treated and cured through endoscopy procedures like banding and endoscopic sclerotherapy.
Victims of throat cancer can undergo ERCP endoscope to place artificial food pipe. When kids swallow marbles, coins, pencils, needles, earrings, hairpins by mistake, these can easily be extracted through endoscopy without any need for surgery.
NBI Endoscopy
It’s one of the sophisticated instrument used in gastro-endoscopy. NBI stands for “Narrow Band Imaging”. It is more like the difference between normal TV with picture tube and a Full HD LCD TV. Usually, cancer can be detected only when it is has developed to a certain level, through normal endoscopy. But with NBI endoscopy, cancer can be detected in its initial stages.
How it becomes possible?
Though it looks like a normal endoscopy instrument, there is a difference in the way it works. Usually, whenever there is cancer formation at any part of the body, there will be the formation of new nerves around it. This instrument can photograph this accurately and more clearly. This is the basic science behind its working.
Helpful light waves
In normal endoscopy Doctor’s analyze the internals using the light from the light bulb in its head part. But in NBI endoscopy, doctors can analyze it using three color light waves which include red, blue and green.
Blue light waves help to analyze the outer layer of the tissue, red light helps to analyze middle layer of the tissue and green light helps to analyze deeper layers of the tissue. When these lights penetrate different layers of the tissue, blood vessels in these zones absorbs those lights, this can be pictured using the endoscopy instrument and can be telecasted on a larger screen.
Doctor’s will analyze the difference in blood flow in the normal regions and affected regions to detect cancer. The biopsy can be carried out side by side to detect the cancer type as well. This helps in a great way to detect cancer in its initial stages and to give appropriate treatment to cure it completely. This instrument can also detect possibilities of cancer in future. So appropriate measures can be taken to prevent cancer before its occurrence.