An endoscopy is a procedure used to visually examine your upper digestive system. During an endoscopy your doctor gently inserts a long, flexible tube, or endoscope, into your mouth, down your throat and into your esophagus. A fiber-optic endoscope has a light and tiny camera at the end.

Your doctor can use this device to view your esophagus, stomach and the beginning of your small intestine. The images are viewed on a video monitor in the exam room.

If your doctor sees anything unusual, such as polyps or cancer, he or she passes special surgical tools through the endoscope to remove tissue or collect a sample to examine it more closely.

From Mayo Clinic to your inbox

Sign up for free and stay up to date on research advancements, health tips, current health topics, and expertise on managing health. Click here for an email preview.

To provide you with the most relevant and helpful information, and understand which information is beneficial, we may combine your email and website usage information with other information we have about you. If you are a Mayo Clinic patient, this could include protected health information. If we combine this information with your protected health information, we will treat all of that information as protected health information and will only use or disclose that information as set forth in our notice of privacy practices. You may opt-out of email communications at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the e-mail.

Oct. 12, 2023