Friday, January 28, 2011

FICE -- A New Imaging Tool

FICE -- A New Imaging Tool

Colonoscopy is considered the gold standard for finding and removing – and possibly preventing – colorectal cancer. It can detect up to 95% of colon cancers and can be used to remove precancerous polyps before they develop into cancer. Today researchers are working to make colonoscopy an even better screening tool. One new imaging system in development is the Fuji Intelligent Chromo Endoscopy (FICE).

As with narrow-band imaging, FICE also narrows the bandwidth of conventional white-light colonoscopy to improve visualization, but it creates this effect electronically. Using special software, FICE takes the image transmitted from the white-light colonoscope and creates a "virtual" image at predetermined wavelengths.

The virtual image shows minute details in the polyp and the colon lining that can't be seen using standard colonoscopy. As with narrow-band imaging, the doctor can, with the push of a button, alternate between the white-light-generated image and the virtual one.

FICE is beneficial in the same way as narrow-band imaging. Research shows that it likely doesn't improve polyp detection, compared with white-light colonoscopy, but it does help differentiate cancerous and precancerous polyps from benign polyps. What's more, it may do it even better than narrow-band imaging. In a 2009 study in Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, the overall accuracy of FICE in identifying cancerous and noncancerous polyps during colonoscopy was 98%.

While the FICE device is commercially available, it is a newer technology than narrow-band imaging and its benefits in accurately identifying benign versus cancerous polyps require confirmation in larger studies.

From John Hopkins University

No comments: