Capsular endoscopy: How the technology works for endoscopic examina...

Capsular endoscopy is a procedure for examining a patient's food line with an endoscope capsule with a built-in video camera, combined with a video signal transmitter.

During the passage of the gastrointestinal tract, the capsule makes several tens of thousands of pictures within a few hours, which are transmitted to the antennas placed on the patient's body and recorded in the memory of the receiving device. With the help of capsular endoscopy, it became possible to obtain images of previously inaccessible parts of the small intestine for endoscopy.

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Endoscopic examination of the esophagus and stomach (when an endoscopic tube is inserted into the mouth) is a very unpleasant medical procedure. High-tech firms have come up with a capsule endoscopy (when the patient swallows a tablet with a built-in camera), but the problem is that the speed and orientation of this tablet in the body is very difficult to control, so this survey is still quite expensive and unreliable.

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British doctors from Cancer Research UK came up with a simpler solution - an endoscopic capsule on the thread of Cytosponge. Its ingestion and delivery causes minimal discomfort in the patient. And in this case, the capsule is not a camera, but biomarkers that react to certain substances. While the technology was worked out for the diagnosis of Barrett's syndrome - a serious disease of the esophagus.

Well, it's almost time for this mockery to end, when the doctor puts a tube in the ass for the patient's intestine. Endoscopic capsule for colonoscopy PillCam Colon (Israeli company Given Imaging) was certified by the US FDA, and a little earlier it was certified in Europe. This capsule (12x33 mm in size) has a built-in video camera that produces detailed shooting as the capsule passes through the intestine. And for the patient, the study boils down to the fact that the capsule needs to be swallowed, the device is hung on the belt - the recorder and a day with it. However, there is no discomfort during or after the study. And if you are curious and are interested in seeing a capsule during passage of the intestine. - see this video:

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Every person who has been endoscopically examined with a traditional endoscope (a tube that is pushed into your stomach, or worse - in the ass) knows that this is not a very pleasant procedure. Therefore, everyone is waiting with impatience, when instead of this bullying you can just swallow a small capsule with a video camera. Unfortunately, with capsule endoscopes - it's not so simple. The main problem is the inability to manage the capsule inside the gastrointestinal tract, which means there is a high probability of missing something important. The Israeli company Given Imaging is perhaps the only manufacturer of capsule endoscopes that does not lose hope for a bright future. Their new model PillCam SB 3, which recently received certification in the US, has a new technology for intelligent surveying. It can measure the speed of the movement of the capsule and adjust the frequency of the frames shot by the camcorder at this speed. ***

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Capsular endoscope is a tablet with video cameras, which the patient swallows to examine the digestive system. Such things in the future will replace traditional endoscopic tubes (which are not at all pleasant to swallow). Only now we are waiting for this bright future for a very long time. Endoscopic capsules were invented even 10 years ago, and for a long time already there are commercial certified specimens, but their scope is very limited so far (and hence the cost is high) due to one simple problem - the movement of the capsule in the digestive tract can not be controlled (hence , the accuracy of diagnosis suffers). A couple of years ago, Olympus and Siemens tried to control the movement of the capsule with the help of a tomograph, but something was not heard for a long time about their new successes. One more guys tried to screw the propeller to the capsule, but this venture also failed.

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We have already talked about the prospects and problems of capsular endoscopy, which should replace the stupid procedure of swallowing the endoscopic tube. The main problem of existing endoscopic capsules is that one can not control their movement along the digestive tract, and therefore it is not always possible to examine problem areas. Japanese company Olympus is a player # 2 in the growing market of capsule endoscopy (after the Israeli company Given Imaging). Together with Siemens Healthcare, Olympus is trying to create a technology for the controlled movement of a capsule inside a person ... using a magnetic resonance imager. Those. the patient swallows the capsule with a lot of water, is placed in the MRI. The tomograph creates magnetic fields of different directions and moves the capsule through the stomach. And the capsule passes video on the doctor's computer .

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The gastroenterology department of the Preobrazhenskaya Clinic in Yekaterinburg began using capsular endoscopy in a comprehensive gastrointestinal examination. The first studies showed that the new method allows to accurately diagnose diseases, which it was difficult to determine by traditional methods. This is especially important for determining such serious diseases as small intestine cancer. The undoubted advantage of capsular endoscopy doctors call the accuracy of diagnosis, and patients - painlessness and the ability to lead a habitual way of life, since the procedure practically does not require special training. The previously used videogastroscopy and videocolonoscopy (as independent research methods) do not allow to fix the early stage of the disease, and also to examine the patient's small intestine, but with the advent of capsular endoscopy of the gastrointestinal tract areas that can not be studied, there will be no.