Within the last two decades advanced endoscopic imaging has seen many revolutions. The new endoscopic imaging techniques now allow a detailed analysis of mucosal and submucosal structures and include chromoendoscopy, magnification endoscopy, and endocytoscopy. This is especially useful for conditions such as Barrett’s esophagus, colon polyps, and early neoplasias of the luminal gastrointestinal tract. Moreover, the recently introduced confocal laser endomicroscopy system allows us to analyze structures at the cellular and subcellular layer thereby obtaining an optical biopsy during the ongoing endoscopic procedure. Besides, confocal laser endomicroscopy has the potential to visualize fluorescence-labeled peptides against specific epitopes, that is, in gastrointestinal cancer or inflammatory bowel disease thus announcing molecular imaging in the field of endoscopic research.

Furthermore, with the development of balloon-assisted endoscopy and capsule endoscopy the endoscopist is now able to visualize the entire small bowel.

This special issue of Diagnostic and Therapeutic Endoscopy focuses on the exiting new developments of gastrointestinal endoscopy. We would like to invite our colleagues to contribute original research articles as well as review articles that will stimulate our continuous efforts of endoscopic research in order to improve patient care. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Recent developments of chromoendoscopy (dye-based, optical chromoendoscopy, virtual chromoendoscopy)
• Latest technologies to obtain optical biopsies
• Role of molecular imaging in gastrointestinal endoscopy
• Enhanced colon polyp detection and characterization
• Advances in diagnostic imaging of the small bowel

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/dte/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/ according to the following timetable: