인두암과 식도암의 새로운 진단내시경

New Diagnostic Techniques in Cancer of the Pharynx and Esophagus

The diagnosis and treatment of early gastrointestinal cancers is the gastroenterologists' mission because of national cancer screening program in South Korea. The detection of early cancers is emphasized, because these were previously treated with surgical treatment can be currently cured with endoscopic treatment. Gastroenterologists who achieved at least on some level can make an exact diagnosis regardless of what type of endoscopy, but generally, there are some required conditions for an optimal diagnosis. First, clinically important lesions have to be detected easily. Second, the border and morphology of lesions have to be characterized easily. Third, lesions have to be diagnosed exactly. Precancers and early cancers are often subtle and can pose a challenge to gastroenterologists to visualize using standard white light endoscopy. The use of dye solutions aids the diagnosis of early gastrointestinal cancers, however, it is a quite cumbersome to use dye solutions all the time and the solution often bothers the exact observation by pooling into the depression or ulceration of the lesion. To overcome this weakness, newer endoscopes are now developed so called "image enhanced endoscopy" using optical and/or electronic methods such as narrow band imaging (NBI), autofluorescence imaging (AFI), i-scan, flexible spectral imaging color enhancement (FICE) and confocal endomicroscopy (CLE).