Endoscopic measurement of lesion size: An unmet clinical need

Abstract

[...]in the case of early gastric cancer, larger tumors are often associated with an increased likelihood of lymph node metastasis, and whether to perform endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) is partially dependent on the size of the lesion. [...]accurate measurement of lesion size may significantly impact the diagnosis and treatment plan for the patient. [...]its large margin of error renders it unsuitable for meeting the stringent requirements of size measurement in clinical practice. [...]the introduction of computer-aided measurement tools has become increasingly important. Based on this principle of a monocular camera system, during the endoscopy procedure, if the distance between the tip of the endoscope and lesion can be obtained in real time, it would subsequently allow for size measurement [Supplementary Figure 2, http://links.lww.com/CM9/B856]. The width of the grid scale was constantly adjusted according to the distance between the tip of the endoscope and lesion, which was calculated using the amount of laser light reflected from the lesion through an optical probe inserted into the instrument channel [Supplementary Figure 3, http://links.lww.com/CM9/B856].