Endoscopy- Essential Things You Want to Know

Today, doctors don’t prescribe anything without doing some essential tests. If there is anything wrong inside your body that is related to your gastrointestinal areas, doctors prescribe for an endoscopy. With different types of tools, endoscopy is done, like multi-stage balloon dilator endoscopy. Apart from this, there are lots of other procedures too. The entire procedure is a bit strenuous, so if you get some ideas about the process, you can be prepared for it.

What Is Endoscopy?

Endoscopy is a treatment process through which doctors use different tools to check the internal organs and vessels of your body. Today, endoscopy has made it possible to check the problems and fix them without making any large incisions. In this process, the surgeon makes a small cut and inserts an endoscope through it. He also can insert it through an opening in the body, like a mouth. An endoscope is a long and flexible tube that doctors enter into the patient’s body and there is an attached camera to the tube that makes the doctor able to see the problems inside the body. The doctor uses scissors and forceps to collect tissue for biopsy.

Why Do You Need an Endoscopy?

Whether it is a colonoscopy or an endoscopy with endoscopic multi-stage balloon dilator, there are several types of reasons why you need an endoscopy. Your doctor may recommend endoscopy for the following reasons-

  1. To Check out Cancer and Prevent It– Endoscopy is done to check if the patient is suffering from cancer. By collecting a sample of the tissue for biopsy, it is a faster way to screen cancer. For screening colon cancer, colonoscopy is done. Often, through endoscopy, doctors remove growths of cysts and polyps that can turn into cancer.
  2. For Checking out the Symptoms of Different Diseases– There are varieties of endoscopic procedures which are done to check the diseases that are difficult to diagnose easily.
  3. For Treatment– Endoscopy is also a treatment procedure for the following issues-
  4. Laparoscopic surgery
  5. Microwave ablation where heat is used to destroy cancerous tissues
  6. Laser therapy where a high radiation beam laser beam is used to destroy cancer cells
  7. Photodynamic therapy where a tumor is first injected and then destroyed by a laser therapy

Types of Endoscopy

As you get to know that endoscopic procedure is done to detect internal diseases, here are some types of endoscopy that are done on the different parts of the body-

  1. Colonoscopy– It is an examination procedure inside your colon, sigmoid colon, rectum ascending colon, cecum, etc.
  2. Endoscopy– It comes with different types, like upper endoscopy, enteroscopy, sigmoidoscopy and so on.
  3. Arthroscopy– Usually, orthopedic surgeons perform this to examine any issues in your joints.
  4. Hysteroscopy– Gynecological surgeons perform this to examine any problem, inside your uterus.

Apart from these, there are lots of other types of endoscopy, like enteroscopy, laparoscopy, etc. Today, medical science has improved so much that such examinations can be done quite easily without giving much trouble to the patient and detecting the disease and diagnosing it has also become much simpler than before.