A medical treatment method comprises orally inserting a first endoscope having a first treatment tool provided thereto into a body cavity, inserting a first insertion member insertion support tool from at least one of abdominal and transdermal cavities into the body cavity, inserting a second endoscope having a second treatment tool provided thereto into the body cavity through the first insertion member insertion support tool, grasping a lesioned part by the second treatment tool inserted into the body cavity by the second endoscope, cutting the lesioned part by the first treatment tool inserted into the body cavity by the first endoscope, and collecting the lesioned part.

An endoscope has two or more branches and each branch may include a source of illumination and a lens train, fiber optic bundle, or solid state image receiving device. Each branch end is independently manipulable or steerable and thus produces an image from a distinct point of view within the body (e.g., front and side views); the images are juxtaposed on a video monitor for simultaneous viewing by the surgeon. Each branch also includes an operating channel or cannula through which various surgical instruments are passed. A first branch may be used to pass an instrument to the situs of a surgical procedure and a second branch may be used to view that situs from a second, separate point of view. Additionally, the second branch may be used to introduce a second surgical instrument through the second branch cannula to approach the situs of the procedure from the angle of the second branch.

An imaging apparatus having an imaging device for imaging an object in cooperation with an endoscope is connected to a video processing unit for producing a standard video signal so that it can be disconnected freely. A signal delay occurs over a signal line linking the imaging device and the video processing unit. For this reason, a timing generator and a phase adjustment circuit are incorporated in the imaging apparatus. The timing generator generates driving signals used to drive the imaging device, and the phase adjustment circuit adjusts the phases of the driving signals so that an output signal of the imaging device will be input to the video processing unit according to predetermined timing. Even when the signal line has a different length from any other or the imaging device offers a different number of pixels from any other, the difference can be readily coped with owing to the imaging apparatus. This leads to alleviation of a load incurred by the video processing unit.

In an electronic endoscope system, a scope has a solid image sensor provided at a distal end thereof to generate image-pixel signals. An image-signal processing unit produces a video signal based on the image-pixel signals. An alteration system alters a peak-to-peak level of a synchronizing-signal component of the video signal. An manual setting system manually operates the alteration system to perform the alteration of the peak-to-peak level of the synchronizing-signal component.

An endoscopic visualization apparatus has a first imaging system and at least one second imaging system, a first image field being covered by the first imaging system, and a second image field being covered by the second imaging system. The first imaging system and the second imaging system are arranged in a common housing. The first imaging system and the second imaging system are significantly different with regard to at least one optical parameter, and the first image field and the at least one second image field overlap one another only partially.