Annual Report 2021

Endoscopy Center

Tomonori Yano, Yoshiko Kaneda, Natsumi Oda, Mari Takahashi, Masayoshi Yamamoto, Hiroyuki Ohta

Introduction

 The Endoscopy Center is located on the first floor of the Center of New Surgical and Endoscopic Development for Exploratory Technology (NEXT). The area of the Endoscopy Center is 2341 m³, and it is one of the largest centers in Japan. We have a total of 16 endoscopic procedure rooms consisting of 10 ordinary procedure rooms, 4 fluoroscopy rooms, and 2 new device innovation rooms. We have built a team that includes a clinical engineer, laboratory technician and radiological technician as well as medical doctors and nurses, to provide the best endoscopic and fluoroscopic procedures for cancer patients in this center.

The Team and What We Do

 In 2021, the total number of cases gradually increased and we performed a total of 18,225 procedures. The number for each procedure is presented in Table 1. As for patient safety, patients can move lying down on a bed to the recovery areas to prevent falls, and are observed by exclusive nurses in recovery areas and their vital signs are monitored in a central area. Furthermore, we established a strict confirmation system for endoscopically taken biopsy specimens to prevent the misidentification of patients in our center.

Table 1. Number of procedure

Research activities

 We presented a study on evaluating the aerosol from patients and the effects of vacuum systems for environmental pollution during endoscopic procedures in the annual meeting of the Japan Gastroenterological Endoscopy Society. We also presented a pilot study on artificial intelligence-assisted rapid on-site cytological diagnosis in bronchoscopy.

Clinical trials

 We are conducting investigator-initiated clinical trials to obtain regulatory approval for a cryo-balloon ablation system for local failed esophageal cancer after endoscopic resection and photoimmunotherapy for patients with esophageal cancer or gastric cancer. In the Endoscopy Center, we established the system for quality control for the unapproved devices that were used in the clinical trials.

Education

 In the Endoscopy Center, we developed a common format for a privilege system for gastrointestinal, hepatobiliary, and bronchoscopic procedures according to doctors’ skills in order to educate our residents step by step to ensure patient safety. The technique of medical assistance for each endoscopic procedure is explained through on-the-job training led by the certified nurses, and we also held several classes regarding the practice of endoscopy.

Future Prospects

 Endoscopic procedures are a less invasive treatment for patients, and we can shift to performing them predominantly in the outpatient clinic. We would also like to collaborate with the cooperating hotel to innovate appropriate circumstances, including the censoring for patients’ condition and food before and after treatments for the practice of endoscopy in the next generation.