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Science Technology

New "Endoscope On a Pill" 96

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the easy-to-swallow dept.
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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New "Endoscope On a Pill" More

New "Endoscope On a Pill"

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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?
    • Yeah, Love Honey [lovehoney.co.uk] do a variety of products.
    • 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.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sm62704 ( 957197 )
      "Swallow this goldfish, Bones."

      "Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a circuc geek!"

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Greyfox ( 87712 )
      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

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by gstoddart ( 321705 )

      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
    • The article states that the equipment is not for finding cancer (polyps) in the colon, but for finding cancer in the esophagus.

      I worked as an intern one summer for a company developing a new type robotic colonoscope. As far as I understood, any known technical solutions for inspecting the colon still requires something to actively inserted into your rear end. It's very painful because the colon will need to stretch in order to proved the necessary reaction force for the colonoscope to bend. You can apparent

  • 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.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tejin ( 818001 )
      Man, you've watched Daily Planet way too much. "Our host Jay Ingram" ? It's also funny that it's possible to date a given episode by the female co-host... Of course I used to watch a lot of @discovery.ca, which later turned into Daily Planet.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by kkwst2 ( 992504 )
      Yes, what you're describing is actually in clinical practice fairly routinely now. From what I can tell without actually reading the article, these are serving slightly different purposes.

      The pill with the camera (what you saw) is for looking at the bowel. It will not spend any significant time in the esophagus. It takes pictures as it travels through your bowel. AFAIK, it requires a bowel prep (drinking a bunch of nasty clear fluid for several hours) or the pictures will be full of crap, just like a

      • There is an esophageal pill cam which takes images much faster and images the esophagus in the 5-120 seconds the camera is in transit. Check out Given Imaging's site.

  • 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

    • About 1.5 years ago I agreed to be a test subject for this procedure. I was going to have endoscopy the old fashioned way and they wanted to compare results. I wore a wide belt that contained the receiver and other hardware. The pill was clear with a camera in both ends so they could see coming and going. It was a large pill but easy enough to swallow with a little water. After ingesting the pill they had me slowly sit up. The whole deal took about 20 min. No discomfort at all. No drugs needed! Then came th
      • 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.
    • 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.
    • I can assure you that endoscopes DO NOT require general anesthesia. Typically the GI doctor will give you some benzodiazapenes and narcotics to put you in "la la land" so to speak but you are fully arousable albeit confused. This is how things are in the United States. In some other countries, they do not give you any medication and you have to take it like a man.

  • Tissue is the issue (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm not sure how well this will work since you can't take samples of tissue with this device - you need that to confirm your diagnosis of Barrett's and to see if there are any signs of early cancer/dysplasia.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by luder ( 923306 )
      For a first examination / diagnosis, you're right, at least in relation to cancer. No matter how good camera pills and MRI get, it will always be worthy to do the traditional exams, as suspicious tissues can be directly taken and polyps removed. However, this might prove adequate for regular check ups - it sure would help many people who have to do one every x years.

  • 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'

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sm62704 ( 957197 )
        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!)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sm62704 ( 957197 )
        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]

    • 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!

      Trust me, the pain from a large mass in your colon is much worse than the pain from a colonoscopy. The pain doesn't go away and will leave you doubled over almost continuously. Then to get rid of the pain they have to cut out part of your colon, which is more painful than the mass was. To make matters worse you still need a colonoscopy before they'll schedule the surgery. Thankfully my mass was benign, but my grandmother's sized mass was malignant. As much as I hate my five year screenings, they're st

    • And I was just starting lunch. Dammit.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sm62704 ( 957197 )
        Never ever surf the internet while eating. You might run across a goatse, or worse, a mcgrew journal or comment.
  • 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.
  • The last time I had to do this the doctor gave me a general anesthetic so I wasn't all the way out, but I wasn't able to get up either. He shoves this thing down my throat and keeps moving it, and every time he'd move it I was gagging on it. He keeps saying "just relax" yeah right, let me shove this thing down your throat and see you relax. Putz. Not only that my throat was sore for a week afterwords. I like the idea of this pill much better. Now if only my HMO would use it within the next 20 years.
    • 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.
  • 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.
  • Typically, an EGD is done with a sedative to supress the gag reflex. I'm guessing that will still be required in this case. It would be nice if one didn't have to be released to the custody of an adult after a simple 5 minute procedure of looking around in there.
  • They already have this [ezinearticles.com] for going down from above.
  • 'Cause it's gotta be a real bitch when they have to pull that cable back through!
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • 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.

      You mean like this [ridgid.com]?

      They ran one of these down my main sewer line a few weeks ago to look at the tree roots that have gotten in...found out that the pipe hasn't collapsed, at least, so they routed it out and I can put off replacing it for a little while. Handy gadget.

  • example. www.askasge.org/

  • Capsule Endoscopy (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    But capsule endocsopies already exist [wikipedia.org].

    It's painless, except for the fact that you have to walk around all day with a ginormous fanny pack strapped to your waist and numerous probes glued to your chest. Well, maybe the preparation is the worst part because you have to prepare for it just like a colonoscopy (i.e. drink a gallon...or a half gallon plus some pills if you get the good stuff... of nasty liquid the night before).

    The weirdest part of the whole procedure is that they start taking pictures before you
  • 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

  • As some folks may know who've endured the procedure, endoscopy usually involves a relatively large tube that has more than the two functions of the tethered "pill" listed here. The tethered "pill" can 1) illuminate and 2) visualize, but it does not allow for 3) irrigation, 4) suction or 5) collection of biopsies ( more info here [wikipedia.org]). These are critical functions that most larger-bore endoscopes can currently perform without the requirement of adding a second endoscope that can provide these functions.

    As a med

  • Screw it -- there's still a tether. I'd be gagging and puking like nobody's business. Now, when they make it work with bluetooth...
  • 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 never heard of two capsule endoscopes recording each other's data. That's definitely a first, and pretty funny at that. I wouldn't have even thought of it. I'm surprised that so many people haven't even heard of capsule endoscopy before. If you look at my user name and the history of the Wikipedia article, you can see that I worked on the article before. I have Crohn's disease myself, but I've only had a colonoscopy and didn't need a scope for my whole digestive system. I have known many people, howev
  • We gave you one of those expanding foam animal gel-caps instead...oops.
  • 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.

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