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Seeing Beyond the Naked Eyes:
In the past two decades, doctors from around the world flocked to the Prince of Wales Hospital to learn latest advances in the trade. The theme to this year’s Workshop, ‘Changing the Practice in GI Diseases’ underpins the evolution of endoscopy over the years. In the 1970s, endoscopy was purely a diagnostic tool. Doctors then had to peep through an eyepiece. We now have charged couple devices [CCD] with video images with immaculate quality. Endoscopy is now a therapeutic too. We can stop bleeding from a peptic ulcer, remove stones in the bile duct and bypass obstruction in gut, conditions that would otherwise require surgery. Therapeutic Endoscopy has indeed ‘changed the practice of GI diseases’ and forms the theme to this year’s anniversary Workshop. Look ahead, we now have ability to ‘see beyond our naked eyes’ with modern endoscopes. Endoscopes are now fitted with narrow band filters [NBI], sensors to image tissue auto-fluorescence and even greater than a 1,000 times magnification, similar to what we can see down a microscope. We can in fact see the architecture of mucosal cells down an endoscope. Diagnosis of cancer, or even early cancer, becomes much easier and more accurate. The invention of ‘capsule’ endoscopy will mean that we can examine small bowel, an area that was previously beyond the reach of an endoscope. After swallowing the capsule, the patient and the doctor can then look at the inside of our gut real-time in a handheld device. In future, these capsules will become navigational and even potentially therapeutic. As we marvel the new technologies, staff at the Endoscopy Centre, together with over 600 endoscopists from the five continents of the world, celebrates the 20th anniversary with great joy and anticipation to the future.
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