Development of a Cost-Efficient Bronchoscope for Low-Resource Environments
Project Importance
Within the last two decades there has been a rapidly increasing demand for healthcare services in low-income countries. The lack of medical services in these areas has led to the prevalence of disease, specifically respiratory diseases which are leading causes of death in low resource. Among respiratory diseases, TB shares the highest burden with over 10.6M deaths and 1.5M new cases in 2017 alone.
TB is treatable and but a major barrier to treatment is diagnosis. Unfortunately more than one third of pulmonary TB patients cannot produce sputum and even when produced, there is an inadequate volume or quality in up to 20% of the case. A potential solution is to use a bronchoscope which allows doctors to collect a purer sputum sample and better identify the origin of bacteria.
Problem Statement
Current bronchoscope devices on the market face a number of issues that make them unfavorable for providers in low resource environments. The high up-front cost of a bronchoscope, coupled with bulky recording equipment, impairs both purchase and sharing of these devices. As a result, most healthcare providers in low resource environments do not own bronchoscopes, greatly exacerbating the difficulty in diagnosis of millions of TB patients.
Our Solution
We aim to design and develop a bronchoscope that is more cost efficient, portable, and durable than current devices on the market and can also be controlled with common appliances such as iPhone and iPad technology for universal ease of use and increased availability.
Current Overall Design
Current Market Landscape
The current market is dominated by two major leaders: Olympus and Pentax. These leaders are not not suitable to the low-resource sector because of the high costs associated with equipment production and cleaning. Sterilization protocols are also extremely rigorous and require skilled professionals. To accommodate the low cost needs of our consumers, we will be cutting costs through decreased video and material quality as well as reduced functionality without compromising the efficacy of our device in its role of Tuberculosis diagnosis.
Design and Marketing Pathway
