Camera in a capsule

Pill endoscopy is a noninvasive procedure that uses a dime-size capsule with a tiny camera

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Stay at home, skip the hospital
Take a pill, play golf

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By Christy Oglesby
CNNfyi Senior Writer

It might not be long before doctors can view the inside of a patient's intestines by just giving them a pill.

In the past, doctors who needed to diagnose digestive problems would either use X-rays or endoscopy, which involves sedating a person and guiding a narrow tube with a camera attached down the throat and into the stomach and upper intestinal tract. Before endoscopy, doctors would have to perform surgery to assess some problems.

HOMEWORK HELP American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy Virtual endoscopy    VIDEO Wireless pill technology allows doctors to see a patient's digestive tract. QuickTime Play Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K

But physicians in Israel and Britain have been working on a diagnostic device that would be less invasive than tubes and surgery.

Called pill endoscopy, it uses a dime-size capsule that contains a miniature camera. A patient would swallow the capsule, which travels through the body the same way food does

As the tablet makes its journey, it transmits signals that are later downloaded as images on a computer. The one-time use pill is disposable and would be eliminated the same way as food.

Stay at home, skip the hospital

The device, which has not been approved yet for use in the United States, offers several advantages to current diagnostic measures.

"Once swallowed, it's relatively painless," said Dr. Paul Swain, the British physician who started developing the procedure five years ago. Second, the pill's camera would provide images of the intestine that heretofore have been too difficult to reach and view with the traditional tube camera of the endoscope.

"It is a device that doesn't have to be used at a hospital," said Swain, a professor and gastroenterologist at the Royal London Hospital. "You can swallow it at home and wear the belt [with the transmitting antenna]. This makes you much more mobile."

Swain and doctors in Israel started working on the same tool independently in 1995. Two years ago, they began collaborating. In October, they started human testing, which included Swain swallowing one of the capsules.

The device is relatively new, said Dr. David Fleischer, and so it is too soon to know its potential limitations and uses. But he said he believes the concept is a good one.

Take a pill, play golf

"In my mind, anything that minimizes the need to put tubes into people's bodies is a good thing," said Fleischer, a professor at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington. "There are more than 15 million endoscopies done each year. And that usually means people must come to a hospital; they are sedated and off of work -- usually for a half day -- because of the sedation."

On his 1998 trip into outer space, former U.S. Sen. John Glenn swallowed a device similar to a pill endoscopy capsule to measure his core body temperature.

"With [pill endoscopy], you can go out and play golf," Fleischer said. "In terms of its potential, that would be great."

But there are also drawbacks, Swain and Fleischer said. Physicians can use traditional endoscopy to perform biopsies, which means collecting tissue samples, to test for cancer. They can also use the device to stop bleeding.

The biggest disadvantage of the pill procedure, Fleisher said, is the inability to direct the device. Physicians performing traditional endoscopy can aim the camera at areas of organs they want to examine more closely. But the free-floating nature of the pill makes that impossible.

For that reason, "it's nowhere close to replacing traditional endoscopy," Fleischer said. "In more than half of all endoscopy, something else is done other than looking."