Elizabeth:
I still have not found the JMAR connection to this English/ Israeli endoscope. Below is an interesting Reuters release. Any leads?
John Wilson
Wireless Endoscope Can Be Swallowed Like a Pill
LONDON, May 25 (Reuters) - A disposable, capsule-sized video camera has
given British and Israeli
researchers a new way to detect stomach and bowel problems that avoids the
need for rectal examination.
"This is completely painless. Patients just swallow the capsule. They don't
know it is there. The other thing that
is different is that they don't have to be in a hospital environment," Dr.
Paul Swain, of the Royal London
Hospital, said in a telephone interview with Reuters.
The torpedo-shaped endoscope, devised by Dr. Swain and his Israeli
colleagues at Given Imaging Ltd in
Yoqneam, Israel, measures just 11 mm by 30 mm (0.4 in by 1.2 in). It can be
swallowed like a pill, and it
takes images of the stomach and upper small bowel as it passes unaided
through them.
Unlike an endoscope, the device has no painful external wires or fibreoptic
bundles or cables. It contains a tiny
light source, radio transmitter and video camera lens that transmit images
stored digitally on a portable receiver
worn on a belt.
After the endoscope passes through the body the patient hands the belt back
to the physician and the images
are downloaded onto a screen. The device is disposable and is contained in a
sterile pack, so the chance that
it could transmit an infection to patients is considered to be much lower
than that with a normal endoscope.
"Patients are much freer during it and can do their normal daily activities.
The other advantage is that it shows
really well a part of the bowel we have not been able to image properly
before ? the small bowel," Dr. Swain
said.
The endoscope, which is described in the May 25th issue of Nature, allows 6
hours of continuous recordings.
It takes about 24 hours to pass through the body. Its position is calculated
from the strength of the signal, and
patients are not even aware of it.
Initially the researchers foresee using the device to detect bleeding after
surgery from sites that cannot be
reached with a normal endoscope. It can also be used to detect bowel or
stomach cancer.
Dr. Swain and his colleagues have already tested the endoscope on 10 people
with good results. Patients had
no trouble swallowing it and felt no discomfort while it transmitted the
video images.
The researchers have not determined a price for the instrument, but they
said that it would be quite cheap to
make. An Israeli company is working on it, but it must be approved by
regulatory authorities before it will be
commercially available.
Nature 2000;405:417. |
