Endoscopic demand is growing and tending to increase its minimally invasive nature and the great amount of information it provides. It also enables accurate and efficient diagnosis while curative treatments.

Also, the endoscopy unit is equipped to perform a technique called endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP), which is recommended for diagnosis and treatment of certain diseases of the biliary tract and pancreas. Before his deployment was also carried out a great effort of organization and training section, carrying out some of its practitioners a training process that enabled their entry into the service portfolio.

Before the launch of this new technique for patients who needed it had to be moved to other hospitals. A total of 122 patients have been able to benefit from this new technique.

Increased patient safety
The Endoscopy Unit has significantly increased the safety of the patient undergoing the endoscopic procedure, reducing the inconvenience that may occur in patients undergoing surgery and improved the comfort of them. It also allowed us to increase the activity of the unit, with the consequent reduction of waiting time and the operation of this service which is adjacent to external queries.

The endoscopy area consists of a pre-sedation room, two rooms for gastrointestinal examinations and a room for endoscopic examination of breath. All are equipped with the latest technology, with towers high definition endoscopy. Moreover, integrating a sedation and recovery room consisting of four beds reserved for the recovery of patients treated, with complete equipment for surveillance monitoring of patients after anesthesia.

It also has a cleaning and disinfection module connected to the three endoscopy rooms, where they proceeded to a prompt and proper sterilization of equipment to expedite and other interventions.

From now on risky procedures can be performed on the heart of a baby having a better visual inspection, since an intervention can now be monitored throughout the whole course using ultrasound imaging. With their only 7.5 millimeters in diameter is microTEE only about one third as large as previous pediatric TEE probes. Especially the smallest and most vulnerable patients will benefit from this great technological progress. The thin, flexible tube is inserted into the esophagus and positioned accurately by the examining physician. Its proximity to the heart of the upper digestive tract makes it the ideal starting point for the cardiac ultrasound. From there, the presentation of cardiac structures and the large proximal cardiac vessels is largely trouble free. Thus arise during a surgical high-resolution images of the heart, without affecting the air in the lungs or ribs imaging. The new multiplane probe possible by the almost three-dimensional perspective, and by the extremely good imaging a more accurate diagnosis. The intervention, such as how to troubleshoot a complex heart defect, can therefore be made secure planning and faster. Another advantage is that the success of individual surgical steps can be carried out during the procedure, so that it can be assumed that will reduce the number of corrective re-operations.

“The microTEE probe represents a major step forward in our capabilities for intra-cardiac imaging in infants and young children,” said Karlheinz Meier, Business Unit Manager, Philips Healthcare ROOF. “The miniature probe has proved to be highly risky for our pediatric surgeons in the already considered invaluable. Finally, our smallest patients can also use this gentle intraoperative imaging will be monitored.”

Previously was a radiation-free ultrasound imaging in young infants during critical cardiac catheterization or surgery is not possible – the draft probes were too large, so they for the cardiac imaging of the child’s esophagus does not have could be used. For this reason, high-risk procedures were routinely performed in these tiny patients of cardiologists and surgeons without the supporting TEE images.

Of course, the miniature wonders can also lead to diagnosis and treatment monitoring are used in adult patients who have probes such as problems swallowing conventional TEE.

Ultra-small sensors already exist for some time. The problem: The probes are either sent through the blood vessels or gastrointestinal investigations through the esophagus into the body and has had only one viewing direction. So there was always a rather large blind spot that could not be illuminated in major investigations.

Conventional ultrasound examinations from the outside, which will penetrate deep into the interior of the body to provide physicians with an overview on the state to procure organs, are virtually impossible because the required higher sound track to the detriment of image resolution. Therefore, ultrasound is now used primarily for pregnancy diagnosis. For deeper investigation, however, people take up much more expensive tomography.

With the new probe was developed by researchers at the University of Albuquerque in the U.S. state of New Mexico, are the “tunnel vision problems” of the past. Within a short time, the probe may, if it is swallowed as a pill, for example, more accurately provide a picture of the stomach or digestive tract. In the future, the researchers will see, however, the probe deep in the brain, to explore where the bloodstream and thereby prevent strokes or aneurysms.