Professor Tells Endoscopists To Open Mind To Technology

KUALA LUMPUR, April 15 (Bernama) -- Endoscopists in the country have been advised to keep their mind open to the many new technologies in the field of gastroenterology.
Prof Anthony Axon from Leeds, United Kingdom, said endoscopists should, at the same time, avoid believing everything they read about the new technologies.
"You shouldn't dash and do it on your patients. Wait for results of controlled trials," said the president of the World Organisation of Digestive Endoscopy at an Endoscopy Workshop themed Frontiers of Therapeutic Endoscopy organised by the University of Malaya and the Malaysian Society of Gastroenterology and Hepatology (MSGH), here Saturday.
This was because some of the technologies have yet to be proven safe while others might be too expensive to conduct, he said.
"It is important to do it safely and well," he told about 200 participants of the workshop.
Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography (ERCP), which enables physicians to see inside the stomach and duodenum when diagnosing problems in the liver, gall bladder and bile duct, was sometimes very hard to do and many people have yet to understand how to use it, said Axon.
Gastroenterology was facing a total change with the introduction of new technologies every year, he said.
There is now technology that gives high resolution and magnification endoscopy, with 1.5x to 150x zoom with moveable lens, 850,000 megapixel resolution, technology that uses lights-tissue interaction, Autoflourescence Videography, Optical Coherence Tomography which is still in the infancy stage or the Confocal Laser Endoscopy which is still under study.
"Endoscopy is more interesting and demanding these days. There is equipment for specialised functions. Individual endoscopists must specialise as well," he said.