Endoscope device

Abstract

An endoscope device obtains tissue information of a desired depth near the tissue surface. A xenon lamp ( 11 ) in a light source ( 4 ) emits illumination light. A diaphragm ( 13 ) controls a quantity of the light that reaches a rotating filter. The rotating filter has an outer sector with a first filter set, and an inner sector with a second filter set. The first filter set outputs frame sequence light having overlapping spectral properties suitable for color reproduction, while the second filter set outputs narrow-band frame sequence light having discrete spectral properties enabling extraction of desired deep tissue information. A condenser lens ( 16 ) collects the frame sequence light coming through the rotating filter onto the incident face of a light guide ( 15 ). The diaphragm controls the amount of the light reaching the filter depending on which filter set is selected.

1 . An endoscope device, comprising:
 an illumination light supplying section for supplying illumination light including a visible light region;   an endoscope having image-pickup section for irradiating the illumination light on a subject and picking up an image of the subject by return light;   a signal processing section for signal processing image-pickup signals from the image-pickup section; and   a band restricting section for restricting to narrow a band of at least one of a plurality of wavelength regions of the illumination light and performing image formation of a band image of a discrete spectral distribution of the subject obtained from the light of the narrow band on the image-pickup section, such that tissue information of an intra-body cavity tissue of the subject can be separated and visually recognized on a layer-by-layer basis, the band restricting section being disposed to be arrangeable on an optical path from the illumination light supplying section to the image-pickup section.   
     
     
         2 . The endoscope device according to  claim 1 , further comprising a mode switch-over section for switching between a normal observation mode for obtaining an image for normal observation and a narrow-band observation mode for obtaining the band image of the discrete spectral distribution obtained by the band restricting section. 
     
     
         3 . An endoscope device, comprising:
 an illumination light supplying section for supplying illumination light with a plurality of wavelength regions including a visible light region;   a band restricting section for restricting to narrow a band of at least one of the plurality of wavelength regions of the illumination light and performing image formation of a band image of a discrete spectral distribution of the subject obtained from the light of the narrow band on the image-pickup section, the band restricting section being disposed to be arrangeable on an optical path of the illumination light supplied from the illumination light supplying section; and   a control section for controlling generation of light of the discrete spectral distribution by the band restricting section, on the basis of a mode switch-over instruction for switching between a normal observation mode for obtaining an image for normal observation based on the illumination light and a narrow-band observation mode for allowing tissue information of an intra-body cavity tissue of the subject to be separated and visually recognized on a layer-by-layer basis on the basis of a band image of the discrete spectral distribution obtained by the band restricting section.