Apparatus for photodynamic diagnosis

US6212425A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• Karl Storz GmbH & Co. KG · DE

Inventors

• Klaus Irion · Liptingen, DE
• Reinhold Baumgartner · Freising, DE
• Herbert Stepp · Planegg, DE
• Andre Ehrhardt · Tuttlingen, DE
• Karlheinz Strobl · Mount Sinai, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Sep 18, 1998
• Grant date: Apr 3, 2001
• Expiry date: Sep 18, 2018

Classification

• Technology area (CPC A): Human Necessities
• CPC primary: A61B1/055
• WIPO field: Measurement
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

A device for "in vivo" diagnosis by means of a photosensibilisator light-induced reaction or a reaction caused by intrinsic fluorescence in biological tissue, having an illumination system, which is provided with at least one light source having a lamp system which generates incoherent light in a wavelength range of at least 380 to 680 nm, a light delivering unit which directs the light of said illumination system at the therapy and/or to-be-diagnosed tissue area, and an imaging, image-recording and image-transmitting unit which images the light coming from said tissue area in a proximal image plane. The device is distinguished in that the net spectral transmittance in the light delivering unit and in the image-generating unit of the device are selected in such a manner that, on the one hand, practically no light with a wavelength of .lambda. from the range utilized for excitation, which by nature has relatively high intensity, "reaches" via the image-generating unit of the device into the proximal image plane, whereas light with a wavelength of .lambda. from the range in which fluorescence occurs can reach the proximal image plane only if it comes from the illuminated tissue are a…