Huikai Xie, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Florida, is replacing the camera on traditional endoscopes with scanners that see beneath the surface, revealing abnormal groups of cells or growth patterns not normally visible.

 “Right now, endoscopes just take pictures of the surface tissue. So if you see some injury, or abnormality on the surface, that’s good,” said Xie “But most of the time, particularly with cancer, the early stages of the disease are not so obvious. The technology we are developing is basically to see under the surface, under the epithelial layer.”

The endoscope is equipped with an infrared scanner – smaller than a pencil eraser – complete with a microelectromechanical system, or MEMS, device. This contains a motorised mirror which pivots to reflect the infrared beam and scan sections of tissue row by row. Xie said his scanners have achieved image resolutions of 10 microns – ten times higher than the only other non-camera-based endoscope, which uses ultrasound technology. 

This high-resolution three-dimensional image includes in-depth information, which may mean biopsies – the current way to determine cancerous tissue – could be avoided. Computers process the return signal, creating a three-dimensional image of the surface tissue and the tissue beneath.

Xie’s scanning micro-endoscope has been tested on animal tissue and show promising results, but has yet to be tested on people.  He hopes that the endoscopes could also be used for treatment and surgery as images are made available in real time – which would be particularly useful for regions of the body, like the brain, where removing as little tissue as possible is important.

“We are trying to couple this imaging probe with cutting tools, so that when surgeons begin cutting they know exactly what’s in front of them,” Xie said.