fiberoptic
Meaning of fiberoptic: Fiberoptic describes thin, flexible strands that transmit light and images, a technology behind many internal medical viewing instruments.
Definition of fiberoptic
Fiberoptic describes technology built from thin, flexible strands of glass or plastic, each capable of carrying light along its length through repeated internal reflection, even as the strand bends around curves. Bundling many of these strands together allows both illumination and a transmitted image to travel through a single flexible cable.
In medicine, fiberoptic instruments allow a clinician to see inside the body without open surgery, since the flexible cable can be guided through natural passages or small incisions while still delivering light to the area being examined and carrying an image back out. Fiberoptic technology underlies many endoscopes used to examine structures such as the airways, digestive tract, and joints.
Fiberoptic cables are also used to deliver concentrated light for certain treatments, since the same ability to carry light through a flexible, thin strand allows light to be directed precisely to an internal target that would otherwise be difficult to reach directly.
Used in a sentence
A fiberoptic bronchoscope was used to examine the patient's airway.
Good to know
Fiberoptic instruments are used across many specialties rather than a single type of procedure, since the same underlying technology of flexible, light-carrying strands applies equally to viewing the airway, the digestive tract, or other internal structures.
Word origin
Where “fiberoptic” comes from
Optic derives from Greek optikos, relating to sight; fiber comes from Latin fibra, meaning a thread or filament.