Related Experiment Video For Confocal laser endomicroscopy
Updated: Jan 20, 2026

Probe-based Confocal Laser Endomicroscopy of the Urinary Tract: The Technique
Published on: January 10, 2013
A study on confocal endomicroscopy in comparison with histopathology for polypoidal lesions of the gastrointestinal
Parvez Ahmed Shah1, Bhavik Bharat Shah2, Vijay Kumar Rai1
1Institute of Gastrosciences and Liver, Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals, Kolkata, 700 054, India.
Background:
Confocal laser endomicroscopy (CLE) has a potential to make optical diagnosis of neoplastic polypoidal lesions and may replace traditional histology in the proposed "diagnose and discard approach". The present study was planned to assess the accuracy of probe-based CLE in predicting histology of polypoidal lesions of gastrointestinal (GI) tract in vivo before their removal.
Methods:
In this prospective single-centre study, patients with upper and/or lower GI polypoidal lesions were enrolled. After detection of polypoidal lesions with white light endoscopy, probe-based CLE examination was performed. Real-time and offline presumptive CLE diagnosis of polypoidal lesions was made as per Miami classification and was compared with histopathology as the gold standard.
Results:
A total of 50 GI polyps from 50 patients (28 males) were assessed. The mean (±SD) size of polyps was 13.7 (± 8.5) mm. Most polyps were located at the cecum (24.0%) or stomach (24.0%). On histological examination, hyperplastic and adenomatous polyps, adenocarcinoma, and lipoma were seen in 54%, 26%, 18% and 2% patients, respectively. On comparison of real-time CLE examination with histopathology, 40 (83.3%) and 8 patients (16.7%) had concordant and discordant results, respectively. Two polyps were inconclusively diagnosed on CLE. On offline examination, concordance with histopathology was observed in 85.4% (n = 41) of polyps, which was marginally better than online examination, though the difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.45). On comparing the real-time and offline findings of CLE, concordance was found in 91.7% of the cases. Accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values on real-time evaluation were 83.3%, 87.5%, 79.1%, 80.7%, and 86.3%, respectively.
Conclusion:
CLE is a useful tool for prediction of histology to assess the polypoidal lesions of the GI tract, and it may avoid polypectomy at least in some patients.
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