1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an endoscope and a chemical modification method for the members thereof. More specifically, it is an endoscope and a chemical modification method of the members thereof capable of reducing impacts on image capturing from lens of the endoscope due to liquid pollutant or mist, moisture.
2. Descriptions of the Related Art
With the advancement of medical technology, various medical devices for clinical examination have been developed and used widely to facilitate medical personnel to diagnose illness state accurately for diagnosis of ulcer or tumor existence with respect to organs such as stomach, esophagus, intestinal canal, trachea etc. The endoscope examination is the most common item among various clinical examination items. The endoscope examination is one of invasive examination for observation of organs inside human body. In an endoscope examination process, at first, a lens of an endoscope has to pass through the body cavity of a subject into the interior of the human body, and images of organs inside the body of the subject are extracted through the lens by the optical image capturing device of the endoscope, followed by the extracted image information is transmitted through an information transmission medium, such as optical fiber, to the exterior for display and for observation and diagnosis.
As an endoscope enters inside the body of a subject, it is very difficult to avoid contact with blood or biological tissues (referred to as pollutant hereinafter) inside the body of the subject, such that the lens of the endoscope is polluted very easily, and thereby, the effect of image extraction through the lens by the optical image capturing device is impacted, and even more, error diagnosis made by medical personnel may occur with respect to the illness state of the subject. Generally speaking, as medical personnel are performing an endoscope examination, once the lens is polluted, the lens has to be withdrawn out from the body of the subject for cleaning for the acquisition of the clearest image. However, the subject will feel uncomfortable in the process of lens withdrawal and insertion. Therefore, the withdrawal process of the endoscope lens has to be performed slowly, such that the examination time will get longer and the subject will suffer from more pain.
To this, the announced Taiwan issued patent No. M418659 proposes a tissue expander, which expands a tissue inside the body of a subject to prevent the lens surface of the endoscope from adhesion by tissue fluid such that the usability state of the endoscope is maintained. As a result, frequent withdrawal of endoscope, when used, from the body of the subject is no more necessary. However, tissue expansion with such a method may injure soft and fragile organs of the subject once careless, so that most medical personnel do not accept such method. In addition, both U.S.A. patent applications No. 2003130674A1 and No. 20090264703 propose an endoscope cleaning device, which installs additionally a structure similar to a brush outside the lens surface of the endoscope, such that the brush is allowed to scrape pollutants to-and-fro on the lens surface once the lens surface is adhesive of pollutants. However, the lens surface will inevitably be scraped as the brush is scraping the pollutants, such that the lens of the endoscope has to be replaced frequently. The expense for the replacement of the lens of the endoscope is not small.
From above, those skilled in the art are eager to figure out the problem about how to provide an endoscope that is capable of reducing the time consumed by endoscope examination, reducing uncomfortable feeling of the subject induced by the endoscope examination, and increasing the service life of the endoscope.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds