Endomicroscopic imaging points to esophageal disease prior to surgery

Kathy Mahdoubi | | Health Imaging | Molecular Imaging

Surgery for gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) could be improved by an emerging imaging technique called endomicroscopy, which can detect cellular changes indicating pre-cancerous or cancerous growths. The system can also be used to monitor patients for recurrent disease after GERD anti-reflux surgery.

Mauna Kea Technologies, headquartered in Paris, announced yesterday that the imaging system is breaking ground in the U.S. with surgeons at the Coliseum Northside Hospital in Macon, Ga., They are among the first surgeons in America to put it into action. The so-called “optical biopsy” Cellvizio system combines real-time confocal laser endomicroscopy (CLE) with conventional endoscopy.

“Instead of taking biopsy tissue to a microscope to identify cancer in patients with GERD, with Cellvizio we are taking the microscope to the tissue,” said V. John Bagnato, MD, a surgeon for Coliseum Northside Hospital. “We can often identify cancer in real-time, which is a tremendous advantage for patients and for treatment outcomes.”

The endomicroscopy system has been validated by multiple large-scale clinical trials, the company reports.

 

Kathy Mahdoubi

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