Patent ID: 7172553

Claim:
An endoscope system for analyzing normal and pathologically affected tissues, comprising: a light source configured to sequentially generate first, second, and third wavelengths of illumination light for illuminating normal and pathologically affected tissues, the third wavelength of illumination light being an excitation wavelength for exciting fluorescence in the normal and pathologically affected tissues to produce a fluorescent image of the normal and pathologically affected tissues, the first and second wavelengths of illumination light reflecting off the normal and pathologically affected tissues to respectively produce first and second reflected images of the tissues; an image capturing device configured to capture the first, second, and fluorescent images of the normal and pathologically affected tissues; an image processor configured to process the first, second, and fluorescent images captured by the image capturing device to produce a processed image of the normal and pathologically affected tissues; the image processor including an axial conversion unit operable to convert the first, second, and fluorescent images of the normal and pathologically affected tissues into three respective color component signals so that at least one of luminance and hue of the normal tissue is distinguishable from at least one of luminance and hue of the pathologically affected tissue, and so that the hue of the pathologically affected tissue lies within a predetermined range of hue; wherein the axial conversion unit is structured to matrix-convert image data to obtain a two dimensional chromaticity diagram that enables rapid discerning of pathologically affected tissue by mere placement of image data on the chromaticity diagram; and a display unit configured to display the processed image of the normal and pathologically affected tissues, such that normal and pathologically affected tissues in the processed image are easily distinguished when intensities of the first, second, and fluorescent images are plotted on a spacial coordinate system.