Internal TV

The inside of a diseased human bladder seems an unlikely setting for color TV. But that is where some Chicago urologists have been working; they find the views rewarding for their patients' benefit, and they gain the benefit of permanent videotape records of what they have seen.

The first devices --cystoscopes-- for enabling the diagnosing physician to look directly into the bladder were made as long ago as 1877. Despite technical improvements, they still have some shortcomings. Only one doctor at a time can look inside the patient; when the next doctor, or a medical student, looks in, the view may well have changed. There is no pictorial record of what is seen, and the doctor has to write a description in such vague terms as "patchy hemorrhaging."

At Cook County Hospital, Dr. Irving M. Bush and Dr. J. Lester Wilkey have assembled a color TV cystoscope from standard, commercially available components. Its power of inner vision depends on a system of lenses and a cable of glass fibers, less than one-quarter of an inch in thickness, inserted through the urethra, to carry the intense light from a 1 00,000-ft. -candle source and to carry back an image of what is reflected from the bladder wall. Using local and spinal anesthesia, the Cook County doctors have been able to see: the inflamed areas in cystitis; a tumor; an obstructed bladder neck; the encroachment of an enlarged prostate gland. Most important, they can pinpoint the exact location of a tumor or ulcer.

With one or more television screens, each showing a small bladder area enlarged to a 7-in. diameter, any number of doctors or students can look inside the patient's bladder simultaneously. There is far less chance of a diagnostic oversight when the physician can re-ex amine his findings on tape, and his observations are instantly checked by colleagues. At later stages of treatment, or if the patient moves away and is treated by another doctor, the color videotape record will recall accurately and precisely what the original condition was.

Color TV inside the body has been tried for examining the stomach, but the advantages over conventional gastroscopy are not so great as in the less accessible bladder. While moderate bleeding from the bladder wall, or the churning of heavy urinary sediment, may obscure the TV cystoscope's view, this blurring is usually only temporary. The pictures generally are clear and sharp--and in remarkably true color.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.