| 摘要 |
PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To detect a sentinel lymph node, the lymph node to which a tumor metastasizes first, easily and precisely from the surface of a biological tissue. SOLUTION: Indocyanine green as near infrared fluorescent pigment, is locally injected around a tumor previously, then a celiotomy is performed after a prescribed period of time, and near infrared excitation beam L2 is applied to an observation part 10 from an excitation beam irradiation unit 100. As the indocyanine green is accumulated in a sentinel lymph node 11, near infrared fluorescence L4 is emitted from the sentinel lymph node 11. The infrared fluorescence L4 is intensified by an image intensifier 127 and converted into a visualized image by a fluorescent screen 18. An observer can observe both an ordinary image transmitting a half mirror 123 and the visualized image reflected on a mirror 130 and the half mirror 123 at the same time. As the excitation light L2 and the fluorescence L4 are both the light of near infrared wavelength which cannot be easily absorbed in a biological tissue such as the fat covering the sentinel lymph node, the sentinel lymph node 11 can be detected from the surface of the biological tissue. |
