Patent Application
20060004258
The present invention relates to an electronic surgical image examination instrument for penetration into a body and, more particularly, to an image-type intubation-aiding device for helping a doctor with the intubation of tracheal tube.
An endoscope is an instruments widely used in medicine. It is generally used to examine hollow internal organs or cavities. An endoscope can increase the brightness within the range of a wound and can also enlarge the field of vision for a doctor. A doctor can make use of an endoscope to perform an operation for many wounds without resulting in a larger wound.
Conventionally, many fibers bundled together with a charge couple device (CCD) used to take pictures to form an endoscope, which is used to penetrate hollow organs (e.g., stomach, large intestine and trachea) to get tissue images for determining the type and development degree of diseases. Light from a light source is transmitted through the fibers to illuminate a tissue of the human body. The reflected light is transmitted back via the fibers to the CCD for formation of an image displayed on a screen. The diameter of common fibers is smaller than 200 μm. In order to observe an image region from several millimeters to several centimeters, it is necessary to bundle a considerable number of fibers to obtain an image with a sufficient resolution. Moreover, the size of CCD is generally large. The above fiber-type endoscope has the disadvantages of high price and complexity and difficult assembly and maintenance. Because, the above fiber-type endoscope has a high price, it is usually used repetitively for many times so that infection may occur due to difficult sterilization.
In order to solve the above problems of the fiber-type endoscope, U.S. Pat. No. 6,387,043 discloses a transmission type endoscope, wherein a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor replaces the CCD. As shown in
U.S. application Ser. No. 2002/0080248 A1 discloses an endoscope of another type. Light from the light source and reflected light are sent via fibers in conventional endoscopes. In this disclosure, the illumination way of the light source is reserved. Only the CCD image sensor is replaced with a CMOS image sensor. As shown in
Although the above two disclosures solve the problems of fiber-type endoscopes and avoid the situation of using too many fibers. The advantages of the CMOS image sensor like small size and power saving aren't fully made use of.
Accordingly, the present invention aims to propose an image-type intubation-aiding device to solve the above problems in the prior art.
The primary object of the present invention is to provide an image type intubation-aiding device comprising a small-size image sensor and a light source placed in an endotracheal tube to help doctors with quick intubation. Surgeon can rotate or move the probing device through the handle to quickly find the position of trachea. The image type intubation-aiding device of the present invention also applies to other hollow organs.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an image type intubation-aiding device, which makes use of the advantages of a CMOS image sensor like small size and power saving and new optical techniques to increase the spot ratio of nidus.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an image type intubation-aiding device, wherein a tiny CMOS image sensor and light emitting diodes (LED) or organic light emitting diodes (OLED) used as the illumination light source replace the conventional expensive and vulnerable fiber-type endoscope to effectively lower the cost of medical treatment.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an image type intubation-aiding device, whereby disposable endoscopes are available to avoid infection of the human body due to repetitive use of conventional endoscopes.
To achieve the above objects, the present invention proposes an image type intubation-aiding device comprising a probing device made of material compatible with the human body, a flexible soft tube, a display device, and a power source device. The probing device comprises a housing, a light source module behind the housing for illuminating the front, and an optical and imaging device behind the light source module for converting the optical signal into an electric signal. The flexible soft tube is connected with the probing device. The display device is connected with the flexible soft tube and the optical and imaging device. The display device is used to receive the electric signal for displaying after processing. The power source device is connected with all the above devices for providing electric power.
The various objects and advantages of the present invention will be more readily understood from the following detailed description when read in conjunction with the appended drawings, in which:
a is a perspective view of a conventional transmission type endoscope;
b is a perspective view of a penetrating member of a conventional transmission type endoscope;
a is a perspective view of the present invention;
b is an enlarged perspective view of a probing device of the present invention;
The present invention proposes an image type intubation-aiding device. As shown in
As shown in
When the image type intubation-aiding device 30 is in use, the light emission devices 3030 with several wavelength bands in the housing 3022 emit light. The light is transmitted through the transparent housing 3022 and reflected by a target. Making use of the light emission devices 3030 with several wavelength bands to probe the human body can detect out the variation of disease region to produce special images. After illumination by the light source module 3026 integrated with the housing 3022 and light collection by the light-collecting lens 3024 to produce an optical signal, which is focused by the focusing lens 3034 in the lens holder 3042. The optical signal is converted into an electric signal by the image sensor 3038 and then displayed on the display device 306 after processing. A common AC power, a battery, or a rechargeable battery provides the electric power for operation.
In the optical and imaging device 3028, a CMOS image sensor is installed behind the light emission devices 3030. Light reflected by the human body is focused by an object lens onto the CMOS image sensor, which converts the optical signal into an electric signal. The electric signal is processed by the image sensor drive circuit board 3036 and is then sent to the display device 306 via electric wires for real-time monitoring of images of the human body tissue. Further image processing can identify organs or nidus. Due to continual decrease of the feature size below 0.35 μm of the semiconductor fabrication process, the size of the CMOS image sensor will shrink constantly. Moreover, because of the packaging way changing from chip on board (COB) to chip size package (CSP), the packaged CMOS image sensor will be only slightly larger than the die. Besides, the size of the whole optical and imaging device 3028 can be reduced to be smaller than 5 mm due to progress of the fabrication technology of micro lens for the focusing lens 3034. The size of LED light source is also very small. It is hopeful that the outer diameter of the part penetrating into the human body of the whole device be smaller than 5 mm.
As shown in
As shown in
To sum up, the present invention provides an image type intubation-aiding device to help doctors with intubation of the human body. Through control of a handheld handle, the lens can be turned or moved to quickly find the position of trachea. Moreover, the advantages of the CMOS image sensor like small size and power saving and new optical techniques are made use of to increase the spot ratio of nidus. The conventional expensive and vulnerable fiber type endoscopes can be replaced to lower the cost. Moreover, disposable endoscopes are available to avoid infection of the human body due to repetitive use of endoscope.
Although the present invention has been described with reference to the preferred embodiments thereof, it will be understood that the invention is not limited to the details thereof. Various substitutions and modifications have been suggested in the foregoing description, and other will occur to those of ordinary skill in the art. Therefore, all such substitutions and modifications are intended to be embraced within the scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims.
