Bronchoscopy - Year 2001 and beyond

The current revolution in technology, imaging, and information processing will be of major influence on bronchoscopy within the next two decades. Clinicians will be able to visualize structures in vivo that up to now only the pathologist could see. Clinicians will reach anatomic structures that are inaccessible by the bronchoscope, yet treat diseases that are still the domain of surgeons, medical. oncologists, and radiotherapists. Clinicians will be able to communicate online worldwide, improving standards of patient care, teaching, and finally even perform interventional procedures by way of networks. Because of the exponential growth of sciences like nanotechnology and biotechnology, these changes will come very rapidly. The new quality of these intelligent instruments will demand a new ideological and ethical discourse on the future of science in general.