Patent ID: 8123679

Claim:
An endoscope apparatus comprising: an insertion portion, one end of which is inserted inside a lumen of a subject; an image-acquisition unit configured to acquire an image of an interior wall in the lumen as a substantially circular or substantially ring-shaped interior wall image; a transformation processing unit configured to transform, in the interior wall image, at least substantially ring-shaped images concerning the interior wall, whose distance from the one end is uniform, to substantially straight-line-shaped or substantially band-shaped images; a distance-measuring unit configured to measure a distance moved by the insertion portion relative to the subject; an image synthesizing unit configured to join the transformed images on the basis of the distance moved measured by the distance-measuring unit:, an excitation light source configured to emit excitation light for generating fluorescence from the interior wall; a light-guiding fiber configured to guide the excitation light to the one end of the insertion portion; and a fluorescence filter configured to transmit only the fluorescence generated from the interior wall, wherein the image-acquisition unit acquires an image using the fluorescence transmitted through the fluorescence filter.