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New "Endoscope On a Pill"

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Fri Jan 25, 2008 01:34 PM
from the easy-to-swallow dept.
Science Technology
ScienceDaily is reporting that a new form of endoscope developed at the University of Washington is more like swallowing a pill than the typical "massive" cable. The pill, complete with a 1.4 mm wide tether, contains a single optical fiber for illumination and six fibers for collecting light. "Once swallowed, an electric current flowing through the UW endoscope causes the fiber to bounce back and forth so that its lone electronic eye sees the whole scene, one pixel at a time. At the same time the fiber spins and its tip projects red, green and blue laser light. The image processing then combines all this information to create a two-dimensional color picture."
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[+] How The Latest in High Tech Works 93 comments
Popular Science has up a feature looking at "how it works", examining the innards of several new technology-based innovations. We've talked about the Sayaka endoscope in a pill, but did you know it captures images in 360 degrees? We've discussed the adorable little Pleo dino-bot, but did you know how adaptive it is to stimuli? And what about the tank-burning laser that can be fired from an airplane? Well, we haven't discussed that but I'm at a loss as to explain why. "A kind of reverse telescope called the beam expander inside a retractable, swiveling pod called the turret widens the beam to 20 inches and aims it. The laser's computer determines the distance to the target and adjusts the beam so it condenses into a focused point at just the right spot. Tracking computers help make microscopic adjustments to compensate for both the airplane's and the target's movement. A burst of a few seconds' duration will burn a several-inch-wide hole in whatever it hits."
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  • It's like a party in your stomach! (Score:5, Funny)

    by zlexiss (14056) on Friday January 25 2008, @01:37PM (#22184628)
    It's like a party in your stomach!
  • Is there a model in the works for the other end?
    • For some reason, I get the impression that a 1-mm cable really wouldn't have the rigidity needed to get past the 'puckering' and make its way up to where it needed to look.

      However, the Adult Novelty Toy industry would probably be interested in this "spinning" function...

  • Bouncing? (Score:3, Funny)

    by KublaiKhan (522918) on Friday January 25 2008, @01:42PM (#22184720) Homepage Journal
    I'd probably freak out a bit if I felt this "bouncing back and forth" inside my throat or stomach. I prefer to swallow inanimate objects, thank you; I may be a geek, but I don't go for goldfish swallowing.
    • "Swallow this goldfish, Bones."

      "Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a circuc geek!"
    • Better than having an object the approximate size and shape of a Louisville Slugger shoved up your ass. And then later on the guy with the endoscope walks into the room...

  • Hahaha (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 25 2008, @01:46PM (#22184780)

    is more like swallowing a pill than the typical "massive" cable.

    Goatse guy went through all that for nothing.

    • Well, the pill is actually a supository and the size of an orange, so...

      WARNING: This post might not contain any facts.

  • The Magic School Bus (Score:4, Funny)

    by TheBearBear (1103771) on Friday January 25 2008, @01:46PM (#22184784)
    If they shape this pill like the Magic School Bus I'm down for a colonoscopy anytime

    • If they shape this pill like the Magic School Bus I'm down for a colonoscopy anytime

      Hmmm ... so, you're saying (in public mind you) that if anyone can find anything which resembles a school bus, you're cool with having it placed up your rectum?

      Errr ... good luck with that. Really. Whatever floats your butt^H^H^Hoat. ;-)

      Cheers

  • Old News? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by KillerBob (217953) on Friday January 25 2008, @01:48PM (#22184816)
    I distinctly remember seeing a story about something like this on the Canadian TV show Daily Planet over a year ago. Our host, Jay Ingram, demonstrated it by actually swallowing the pill, and they showed the video on national TV.

    I'd post the link, but this doesn't exactly sound like new stuff and I'm at work so I can't do the research. This was back when he was still co-hosting with Natasha Stilwell, which places it between 2004-2006. She's been replaced in the 2006-2007 season.

  • It could make the procedure a lot more accessible. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CellBlock (856082) on Friday January 25 2008, @01:49PM (#22184840)

    Right now, an endoscope requires a general anesthesia, which requires the patient to be monitored for adverse reactions, as well as accompaniment since the patient won't be able/allowed to drive home afterward.

    My mom just had one done a few days ago, and she lives alone. The clinic performing it usually has a shuttle to pick up and drop off patients, but it wasn't available that day. She offered to take a cab, but they wouldn't allow it, stating that whoever is picking her up and dropping her off would have to stay there. Luckily, a neighbor was willing to help. (I live a few states away, for those wondering why I wasn't helping her.)

    If he wasn't able to help her, she'd have had to reschedule, which would have meant rearranging her work schedule and possibly losing pay if she can't arrange the time off on short notice. If she could have driven herself there and back, she could have scheduled it around work, instead of the other way around.

    I wonder how many people aren't able to have procedures like this done because they don't have the time/resources.

    • Right now, an endoscope requires a general anesthesia, which requires the patient to be monitored for adverse reactions, as well as accompaniment since the patient won't be able/allowed to drive home afterward.

      No, it doesn't, I had one done last year without the general, only anesthetic I used was a tongue numbing mouth wash. It really wasn't that unpleasant. The doctor didn't want to do it, but I told him that I wasn't willing to undergo superfluous anesthesia just for something as trivial as an endoscopy. I bolstered my position by coming alone without anybody to drive me home.

      The charges that it's painful or uncomfortable are really over blown. The only people who should take the knock out drugs are those wit

    • I've had several endoscopies and never under general anesthesia. Normally it's a local anesthetic sprayed onto the back of my throat with an IV benzo, and sometimes Fentanyl as well. They have a look around and often take biopsies. I'm sure there are cases where general anesthesia is needed in endoscopies (medically, or because the patient doesn't tolerate the procedure), but I don't think it's "standard" from what I've gathered (in NZ, at least). Although, I'm still not allowed to drive home.
      • You're talking about that wireless pill camera? That is different to what this article is talking about -- this one still has a cable, just a really thin one.

  • Doctor to patient... (Score:3, Funny)

    by name_already_taken (540581) on Friday January 25 2008, @01:50PM (#22184848)
    I'm sorry sir, it appears you have swallowed a map.
  • I'll stick with blunts.

  • If only they had these 20 years ago! (Score:3, Funny)

    by sm62704 (957197) on Friday January 25 2008, @01:54PM (#22184904) Journal
    I had a really bad hemorriod. I mean it was BAD. My then-wife finally talked me into taking it to the doctor. He scheduled a visit to a local hospital for an endoscopy, as he worried that the anal bleeding was from cancer.

    Well, to make a short story even shorter, the lady doctor he sent me to shoved a big (compared to today) TV camera up my ass. I didn't like it a bit; I'd never had anything up there but shit before. She told me I had the most beautiful colin she'd seen (flattery will get you nowhere in that situation, lady).

    So I went to see a proctologist. The office was dingy, and suggested dirtiness. The heavily accented doctor didn't inspire confidence, telling me I had the worst hemmoroid he'd ever seen. Not exactly what you want to hear from a doctor. "Has anyone ever died from a hemmoroid?" I asked. "No, not that I'm aware of" he said. "Has anyone ever died from hemmoroid surgery?" I asked. "Well," he answered, "there are always risks to any surgery".

    I suffered with my hemmoroid for another fifteen years after that, and finally let a different doctor (a very pretty lady too) cut me a new asshole about five years ago. I think I journaled it in the old Paxil Diaries, I'm not sure. While I was unconscience they did another endoscope, most likely with a much smaller camera.

    I was supposed to go back for another endoscopy last year. Guess what? I'd rather have colin cancer than have that damned TV camera shoved up my ass again!

    -mcgrew
    • If they'd had these twenty years - it likely wouldn't have made a damm bit of difference to what happened to you... Because you underwent colonoscopy, not endoscopy.
    • I have the points, but can't find '-1 TMI'
      • Just use troll, flamenait, or offtopic like everybody else does. And BTW you probably won't want to read any of my hooker-infested journals either.
    • I've had 4+ Hemorrhoid operations myself.
      I had 3 were they just slit the thing when it sticks out and goes hard, purple and painful.
      They used Local anesthetic for the operation with me awake and gave me pain killers (Tylenol 3) for 3-4 days.
      Going to the bathroom for a #2 was not fast or pleasant for the 20 years I had them until I got them banded.

      Now I feel like I got a new one and I make sure I get my fiber!!

      FYI: When nothing sticks out they call them polyps.(they can get banded too!)
      • I only had the one, they put me out for it. "You're going to go to sleep now" and the next thing I knew I was in postop. They prescribed some sort of drug for postop, but I didn't have a car then and had to have my daughter take a cab to the hospital to get me, and she wouldn't walk the 3 blocks to Walgreens to get the prescription filled.

        I had trouble sitting ofr a day or two, but I'm damned glad now I had it done.

        The cataract surgery (click the sig for details) in contrast had no pain whatever, save when
      • my experience, I had this rhoid about the size of a damn quarter, I was drinking a lot and it was coagulated (the blood had solidified) I had the option of surgery or waiting it out, luckily my Dr.'s brother had had the same issue and experimented with an herbal remedy called bioflavonoids, it worked, taking the herb for about two weeks along with hot baths cleared me up. No problems since. I highly recommend them. http://www.google.com/search?&q=bioflavonoids+hemorrhoids/ [google.com]
    • And I was just starting lunch. Dammit.
      • Never ever surf the internet while eating. You might run across a goatse, or worse, a mcgrew journal or comment.
      • Fortunately there was just one doctor, and she was a very nice lady. That didn't make getting something shoved up my ass pleasant, though.

        The one they did with the actual surgery I assume they did before cutting, but I wasn't conscience9sp?) then. Being asleep is the way to go! Although I assume they've got little cameras now.
      • Seriously, its not a big issue.
        Due to my medical history, i have to do them every year or two.
        There are special anaesthetics that are MUCH less severe then the operation once that work like a charm.
        Lay down, get an injection, wake up 30 minutes later, and its done. No pain or anything (besides mild discomfort, as they inflate your colon with air, which want to get out again).

        What really _is_ annoying, and thats the same for all coloscopies, even those with computer tomography, is the need to get everything
      • Hey, when you see a misspelling like that you know the submitter's not using a spell checker and is at least semiliterate. When you see "They're dog over their is there favorite" you know the sumbitter has trouble tying his shoes.

        I always wondered about Colin Powell, what kind of mother would call their kid "colon"?
        • When you see "They're dog over their is there favorite" you know the sumbitter has trouble tying his shoes.

          For all you know, they could be a lot smarter than you and simply have a disorder that impairs their written language skills.
  • I am sure it's made of nontoxic materials. So if it breaks, it won't get digested and you'll see it back in a few days. So why all the fear?

  • Pill allows use in remote locations (Score:4, Insightful)

    by WillAffleckUW (858324) on Friday January 25 2008, @01:59PM (#22184976) Homepage Journal
    In that you only need a trained clinician (say even a nurse) with training in the procedure, and could use this in any office, thus allowing screening in small towns as part of a visiting nurse program for screening, which would even further reduce the cost from the current device limitations that require anesthesia to use (which always has a risk).

    Besides, say it got lost, the small filament size (1.4 mm) would allow it to exit through the digestive tract and be recollected.
  • So it's like a disco up your ass? If you're getting an endoscopy, a party up your butt is likely the last thing you want to see.
  • 'Cause it's gotta be a real bitch when they have to pull that cable back through!
  • That sounds pretty cool that you could swallow it and get your digestive tract checked out, but after that's done it'd be a great way to check for corrosion in the plumbing and then see if the septic tank is in need of being pumped out... Are there any doctors who also do plumbing? No? What about plumbers who do gastroenterology (sp) too? Oh darn they're both so expensive! Guess there will be two bills then.
  • Not exactly the same, but in some ways more impressive: the company my now-ex-gf was working for, designed and built an ultrasonic imaging device that they could feed into your femoral artery and snake up into your beating heart to image the insides real-time. No cracking the chest open, no shutting the heart down and rerouting the blood through an external pump.

    It gets better. They could click the ultrasound transducer into high power mode and selectively kill small sections of the heart that were beatin
  • This technology has been around at least since I've been in medical school, so probably > 8 years. Capsule endoscopy is quite well developed, and I really wish that the Science Daily people would do a bit more research to put "new" events in perspective.

    The one in the article sounds as though there is a tether and can be manipulated back and forth. I don't have any experience with this one. The systems I saw were like this [gihealth.com] or this [wikipedia.org] and were passively mobilized by small intestine movement, just as your
  • I've had an endoscopy in the last 2 months. Anything smaller than the existing, close to 1cm cables (or so it felt) would have been a vast improvement.

    "Hentai Tentacle Porn Oral Rape" would be a suitable description of the experience. I recommend them to all my enemies.

    Might be hard to grab samples with a pill though.
  • I took one of the pill cam's about a year ago. It didn't work on me. My GI tract is too fast for the camera to record enough images to make a decent diagnosis. At least that's what the physician reading the images said.
    • First of all, do you know any aspect of life that doesn't have "economics" attached to it? This is just the nature of reality, so why complain? You might as well bitch that having to die someday is unfair.

      Secondly, economics isn't about whether or not we fairly distribute the money, equipment, and skilled professional time that we can harvest easily from the medical-resources bush that grows abundantly everywhere. Economics is about the fair allocation of scare resources -- in this case the time and ener
    • I'd try another doctor. I've had several endoscopies in the last few years in an NZ public hospital and they have all been quite tolerable, with the worst part being the taste of the local anesthetic spray. I also had IV midazolam and fentanyl to help -- no general anesthetic. My throat is usually a bit sore for a few hours -- if that. It could also be that your medical condition (if there is one) made it more uncomfortable.

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