Medical Imaging Powered by Fiber Optic Technology

With the world’s population that’s growing and living longer, healthcare providers are increasingly looking to advanced biomedical instrumentation to enable more efficient patient diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment. In this context, biomedical sensing applications of optical fiber are of growing importance. At the same time, recent advances in minimally invasive surgery (MIS) demand smaller disposable sensing catheters.

Fiber optic technology has been used in the medical industry for years. The physical characteristics of fiber make it a natural choice for many different applications. Commonly used for illumination, flexible image bundles, light conductors, flexible light guides, laser delivery systems, and equipment interconnects, fiber optic cables provide a very compact, flexible conduit for light or data delivery in equipment, surgical, and instrumentation applications.

Traditional medical fiber optic applications include light therapy, x-ray imaging, ophthalmic lasers, lab and clinical diagnostics, dental hand pieces, surgical and diagnostic instrumentation, endoscopy, surgical microscopy, and a wide range of equipment and instrument illumination.

Optical fibers have been a catalyst for methods that make it easier for physicians to conduct procedures less invasive for patients. They let doctors view and work inside the body, requiring only small entryway incisions and no surgery. Physicians can also measure body temperature and blood chemistry using optical fiber. They can also be used for insertion into blood vessels to give a quick, accurate analysis of blood chemistry.

In medicine, optical fibers enable physicians to look and work inside the body through tiny incisions without having to perform surgery. They are used for instruments that view the interior of hollow organs in the body. Most medical fiber optic imaging instruments have two sets of fibers: an outer ring of incoherent fibers that supplies the light, and an inner coherent bundle that transmits the image. Other instruments may be designed to look into specific areas. For example, physicians use an arthroscope to examine knees, shoulders, and other joints. In some models, a third set of fibers transmits a laser beam that is used to stop bleeding or to burn away diseased tissue.

Fiber optic images provide better dynamic range and contrast—specialized monitors and software allow doctors to focus in on details and perform other manipulations to the image, and also instantly call up digitized prior studies for comparison, improving diagnostic accuracy.