Preface 17.4 John Martin

Flexible gastrointestinal endoscopy has come a long way in the past half-century. From humble beginnings as a rudimentary device to provide direct, albeit low-resolution, visibility of the upper gastrointestinal tract and the colon, the flexible endoscope became immensely more useful with the development of biopsy forceps to provide tissue diagnoses, and polypectomy with the advent of the monopolar snare to effect excisional therapy in the 1960’s. In the latter part of the same decade, ERCP was first described, and quickly ushered into the realm of pancreaticobiliary therapeutics when sphincterotomy was introduced in the mid-1970’s.

Source: Techniques in Gastrointestinal Endoscopy - February 4, 2016 Category: Gastroenterology Authors: John A. Martin Source Type: research