Following a series of deadly outbreaks in hospitals around the country, the Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved the first fully disposable version of the medical device implicated in the infections.
Reusable versions of the device — a long, snakelike tube with a fiber-optic camera at one end, called a duodenoscope — are inserted in one patient after another to diagnose and treat diseases of the pancreas and bile duct, like tumors and gallstones.
