Panasonic and Osaka University Develop Blood Vessel Endoscope

Asahi Shimbun: Panasonic and Osaka University have developed what they say is the world’s first vascular endoscopic catheter with an image sensor on its head that they say greatly improves blood vessel observations and could change existing therapies. The new catheter has a color resolution of about 480,000 pixels, about 50x higher than the existing devices.

An image sensor, a lens and a fiber-optic illuminator are embedded in the head of the vascular endoscopic catheter, which measures 1.8mm across and 5mm long.

Taisho Biomed Instruments Co., a manufacturer of medical devices, plans to release the new vascular endoscopic catheter for sale to hospitals this year. Panasonic has set a shipping target of about 8,000 units in fiscal 2021.