Observations of laryngeal lesions with a rhinolarynx electronic videoendoscope system and digital image processing

Laryngeal lesions were observed with the Olympus ENF-200 rhinolarynx electronic videoendoscope attached to the Olympus EVIS-200 system, an electronic videoendoscope system of Olympus Optical Co, Ltd. The electronic videoendoscope differs from conventional flexible fiberscopes in having a small light-sensitive charge-coupled device (CCD) chip built into the tip of the endoscope portion. This model has a small CCD chip in its 5-mm-outer diameter tip, and can be introduced into the laryngeal cavity by inserting it through the nasal passages. Dynamic color images obtained by this system were very clear and provided excellent resolution. This electronic videoendoscope system could also be connected to the Olympus EVIP-230 digital image processor, which was compatible with this system. Structure enhancement and color enhancement were performed by processing images. In this paper, the ordinary images and the processed images are described and discussed from the standpoint of diagnostic usefulness.