The availability of colonoscopy is largely hindered by the aging design of the flexible endoscope (FE) used for this procedure 5.
Survivability drops drastically to less than 10% when diagnosed at a late stage 4. Preventive colon screening can increase early-stage detection rates for CRC, where a patient’s five-year survival rate is over 90%. The need for colonoscopy is expected to rise by 16% in the next decade 2, with the primary benefit being early detection and prevention of colorectal cancer (CRC), the third most common malignancy worldwide 3. With over 19 million procedures performed every year in the European Union and United States, colonoscopy is the ‘gold standard’ for managing colorectal diseases 1. This work brings alternative endoscopic technologies closer to the translational stage, increasing the availability of early-stage cancer treatments.
The paradigm described here can be adopted in a variety of applications where navigation in unstructured environments is required, such as catheters, pancreatic endoscopy, bronchoscopy and gastroscopy. Moreover, we define the characteristics required to achieve autonomy in robotic endoscopy. We combine the use of robotics, computer vision and advanced control to offer an intuitive and effective endoscopic system. In this work, we use machine vision to develop intelligent and autonomous control of a magnetic endoscope, enabling non-expert users to effectively perform magnetic colonoscopy in vivo. Magnetic endoscopes are a promising alternative and overcome the drawbacks of pain and cost, but they struggle to reach the translational stage as magnetic manipulation is complex and unintuitive. Colonoscopy is limited by the outdated design of conventional endoscopes, which are associated with high complexity of use, cost and pain. However, over half of cases are diagnosed late due to the demand for colonoscopy-the ‘gold standard’ for screening-exceeding capacity. Early diagnosis of colorectal cancer substantially improves survival.
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