Doctors have used small cameras on snaking tubes for years to check patients’ intestinal troubles. These days, they’re asking some patients to swallow the entire camera.
With a single pill loaded with technology similar to a digital camera, doctors can view more than 50,000 still images captured during the trip through the final 20 feet of the small intestine that previously was visible only on X-rays.
The pill, known as the M2A Capsule Endoscopy, is about the size of a multivitamin and is swallowed with a sip of water.
The camera, encased in a white plastic capsule, takes pictures which are transmitted on a radio frequency. The images are captured in a recording device worn on a belt around the patient’s waist. After eight hours, the belt is turned over to the doctor.
The device is a “marvel of microelectronics,” said Dr. David Ramkumar, a gastroenterologist at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, where patients since the beginning of the year have been swallowing the capsules to diagnose intestinal problems.
Patients fast for 10 hours before taking the pill, and are able to go about their days as long as they avoid strenuous activity.
The pill isn’t 100 percent successful because, due to its small size, the camera can capture an image of only about 70 percent of the digestive tract at any one point, he said.
Still, “If you compare that with what we had before, we were looking at rates optimistically in the 30 to 40 percent range,” Ramkumar said. “We’re practically doubling our success.”
Once the images are recorded and the camera belt is removed, the patient simply passes the pill.
Source: msnbc.com Contributed by: DMSMedwire Research JSG Team
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