Video-rate confocal endoscopy

Rigid endoscopes provide high quality optical images of reasonably accessible regions of the inner body, especially regions such as the aero-digestive and genital tracts. In order to enhance the versatility of these instruments we describe a development that permits confocal endoscopic images to be obtained - along with traditional endoscopic images - in real-time, from within the living patient. The system is based around a host lenslet-array tandem scanning microscope, which is capable of producing images viewed directly by eye. These types of confocal microscope are configured for fluorescence imaging together with laser illumination. Hard and soft tissues in the mouth were imaged using this combined system.