Patent ID: 8021295

Claim:
An endoscope system, at least a portion of which is inserted inside the body cavity of a living organism for acquiring images of an acquisition object inside the body cavity, comprising: an agent dispensing portion for dispensing towards the acquisition object a fluorescent agent that reacts with a specific substance inside the acquisition object or that accumulates inside the acquisition object; a light source portion for emitting excitation light for exciting the fluorescent agent and irradiation light having different spectral characteristics from the excitation light; an optical system for transmitting the excitation light and the irradiation light from the light-source portion towards the acquisition object; an image-acquisition portion, disposed in the portion that is inserted inside the body cavity and capable of acquiring fluorescence excited from the acquisition object by the excitation light, and light in a different wavelength band from the fluorescence, excited from the acquisition object by the irradiation light; and a control portion for controlling the operation of the agent dispensing portion so that the acquisition object is irradiated with the irradiation light before the fluorescent agent is spouted out towards the acquisition object, and for synchronizing at least the operation for spouting the fluorescent agent from the agent dispensing portion with the irradiation of the excitation light.