Sharmila Anandasabapathy, MD, Editor

This edition of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy Clinics of North America is dedicated to the evolving field of endoscopic imaging. The world’s leading experts in this area have written comprehensive articles spanning a variety of modalities from optical coherence tomography and confocal laser endomicroscopy to new digital software enhancement technologies. The role of these technologies in both enhancing screening and surveillance is discussed as well as the emerging role of imaging in endoscopic therapy.

Moving one step further into the realm of targeted imaging, part of the edition is dedicated to the role of optical molecular imaging. Indeed, the field of endoscopic imaging is being propelled by parallel advances in engineering, physics, and chemistry as novel, molecule-specific contrast agents are combined with fluorescent endoscopes to identify the particular molecular signature of a cancer and, potentially, predict a patient’s risk of developing cancer. Equally exciting are advances in ultrasound and elastography, which give us textural information—a visual “touch” of a lesion without the surgeon’s need for direct contact. While we move toward novel, targeted contrast agents, older technologies of nonspecific contrast dyes are becoming less frequently used as software-based enhancements seek to provide a “virtual” chromoendoscopic imaging with the push of a button. Last, even routine diagnostic colonoscopy is being viewed from new perspectives: forward, backward, and with an increased focus on reducing cost by predicting polyp histology in real-time.

I would like to thank my colleagues for their support, collaboration, and outstanding contributions to this edition. On behalf of all of the authors, I hope this collection broadens your perspective in this exciting, rapidly progressing area and raises new questions and challenges for the future.