Patent ID: 8046055

Claim:
A lymph node detecting apparatus comprising: an excitation light source, illuminating an excitation light onto a biological observation location that includes a lymph node near a tumor into which a fluorescent dye that emits a fluorescence of a predetermined wavelength has been injected in advance; an optical filter, transmitting light in a transmission wavelength band that includes the wavelength of the fluorescence emitted from the biological observation location upon illumination of the excitation light; an illumination light source, illuminating the biological observation location with an illumination light of a wavelength set so as to be included in the transmission wavelength band, the illumination light being a near-infrared light; a single image pickup device, picking up a fluorescence image and a normal image, the fluorescence image resulting from the fluorescence emitted from the biological observation location and transmitted through the optical filter, the normal image resulting from reflected light due to reflection of the illumination light by the biological observation location and transmitted through the optical filter, the image pickup means outputting a respectively corresponding fluorescence observation image and normal observation image; and an image display means, displaying the fluorescence observation image and the normal observation image, output from the image pickup means, as images for detecting the lymph node, wherein the illumination light source illuminates the observation object with the illumination light of a wavelength that is set close to the wavelength of the fluorescence, wherein the wavelength of a lower limit of the transmission wavelength band is longer than the wavelength of the excitation light and wherein the lymph node detecting apparatus having a plurality of the excitation light sources and a plurality of the illumination light sources, and a plurality of columns, each formed by disposing the excitation light sources and the illumination light sources in a first direction, the columns aligned at predetermined intervals in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction.