Patent ID: 8727969

Claim:
An endoscope comprising: an outer tube having a sharpened distal end; a retractable sleeve slidably disposed in said outer tube, said retractable sleeve having a sidewall and an insufflation channel formed in said sidewall; an image guide disposed in said retractable sleeve, said image guide being movable in a sliding manner between an inserted position within said retractable sleeve and a removed position therefrom, said image guide restricting gas flow to said insufflation channel while said image guide is in the inserted position; a hollow interior formed within said retractable sleeve while said image guide is in the removed position, said hollow interior enabling gas flow to said insufflation channel; and an image conduit fixed in the distal end of said retractable sleeve, the image conduit having a proximal and distal end, wherein the image conduit comprises image fiber having multiple optical fibers fused together with a one-to-one correspondence in the optical fibers' position at the proximal and distal ends of the optical fibers and wherein the image conduit does not function as a lens, and wherein said image conduit transfers an image of an object in contact with a distal tip of the image conduit through said image guide while in the inserted position to the proximal end of said image guide.