Technological advances have made it possible to look inside the body with ever greater precision and without the use of a scalpel. This is where endoscopy comes into play. The word has its roots in ancient Greek and means «to look inside». In medicine, it refers to the use of an endoscope to view and examine body cavities and hollow organs. The device is equipped with a small camera and light source and provides doctors with images from inside the patient's body.

An example of an endoscopic procedure is a gastroscopy, where the doctor examines the inside of the stomach, takes tissue samples or carries out treatments. Endoscopy can be used for diagnosis as well as surgery. For example, small tumours can be removed during an endoscopic treatment. These are minimally invasive procedures, which means that tissue damage is avoided or kept to a minimum.

Relatively inexpensive treatment

Patients benefit from this treatment in many ways. In addition to the early detection of diseases, the risk of infection is reduced, healing is faster and hospital stays are shorter. Endoscopy is also fairly inexpensive, as relatively few staff is needed to perform the procedure. These factors are becoming increasingly important in times of skills shortages and rising healthcare costs.

We are also seeing production gains in diagnostics. When we talk about diagnostics, we focus on diagnostic tests and exclude, for example, X-ray and ultrasound equipment. These tests can be used to screen body fluids for viruses, bacteria or endogenous antigens. One example is the PCR test used during the coronavirus pandemic. The advantage of diagnostic standardised tests is that they can be carried out, for example, by nursing staff in old people's homes or in a pharmacy, which can save a visit to the doctor.

Pace of innovation likely to remain high

In both endoscopy and diagnostics, products have been developed in recent years that help to treat patients quickly and gently. Both technologies are therefore helping to curb the expected rise in healthcare costs as a result of demographic change. From today's perspective, the pace of innovation in both segments is likely to remain above average.


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