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Endoscopy: a great tool for seeing, treating internal organs

Doctors have a number of tools for seeing and treating our inner workings. For a direct view of a particular area, doctors often turn to endoscopy.

Karl Papierniak, MD, a general surgeon at New Ulm Medical Center displays the equipment he uses to perform endoscopies on a weekly basis.

Maybe you’ve heard of someone having a gastroscopy or going to the hospital for a colonoscopy. Both of these procedures involve endoscopy. An endoscopy is a procedure in which a thin, usually flexible tube – an endoscope – is inserted into the body so a doctor can examine organs and internal areas.

An endoscope has a camera at one end connected to an eyepiece and monitor at the other. For the majority of these procedures, the patient is given an anesthetic or sedative for comfort.

“One of the benefits of an endoscopy is that it allows us to closely examine organs and take tissue samples without making incisions,” said Karl Papierniak, MD, a general surgeon at New Ulm Medical Center. “The tube is inserted through a natural opening in the body, such as the mouth or anus.”

Papierniak admits this does not sound exactly comfortable to most. “However, nine times out of ten, people are amazed at how quickly the procedure goes,” he said. “The sedation makes the patient very comfortable and they often wake up and ask ‘when are you going to start?’”

Another important benefit of endoscopy is that if a problem is found, treatment can sometimes begin right away. A good example of this is when polyps are found during a colonoscopy, which examines the large intestine with a kind of endoscope. These potentially precancerous growths can often be removed during the procedure.

“I have many examples of patients within my own practice who either caught precancerous growth so early they did not need surgery, or caught cancerous growths early enough that they needed only surgery and no further treatment such as chemotherapy,” Papierniak said. Within his practice at NUMC, Papierniak generally performs about 25 to 27 colonoscopies a week.

There are specific endoscopes made for different parts of the body. They’re used for procedures that include:

• Upper endoscopy to view the upper part of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. This includes the esophagus, stomach and the first part of the small intestine. This is often used to help diagnose heartburn, indigestion, reflux and swallowing problems.
• Colonoscopy to see the interior lining of the large intestine to detect ulcers, polyps, tumors and areas of inflammation or bleeding.

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New Ulm, MN 56073
507-233-1000
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