Health · 17:20
Swallowable camera
Instead of a tube and sedation, you swallow a capsule and go about your day while it photographs your gut. The idea came from Israeli engineer Gavriel Iddan.
The everyday moment
Your doctor wants to check your small intestine, which a normal scope can't easily reach. You swallow a capsule about the size of a large vitamin, wear a small recorder and carry on with your day. The capsule takes pictures all the way through, and the doctor reviews them later.
How it works
- A camera in a capsuleThe capsule holds tiny cameras, a light source, a battery and a transmitter.
- Pictures on the way throughAs it moves naturally through the digestive tract, it takes several pictures every second.
- A recorder on your bodyThe images go wirelessly to a recorder you wear, or are stored in the capsule in newer models. The recorder usually comes off after about eight hours.
- Then it leavesThe capsule passes naturally. A doctor reviews the images to look for bleeding, inflammation, ulcers or polyps.
The Israeli story
Israeli engineer Gavriel Iddan and gastroenterologist Eitan Scapa first discussed the idea in the early 1980s. In 1993 Iddan proposed the design: a camera, a light and a transmitter in a capsule small enough to swallow. The first one was swallowed in 1997.
Given Imaging was founded in 1998 and based in Yokneam. Its first capsule, the M2A, later renamed PillCam SB, was cleared in Europe and by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2001. The company listed on NASDAQ that October.
The one millionth PillCam was sold in 2009. In 2014 Covidien bought Given Imaging, and the PillCam is now made by Medtronic.
Where you meet it today
More than 4 million PillCam capsules have been sold. Doctors use them mainly to find hidden bleeding in the small intestine and to monitor Crohn's disease, and newer capsules have several cameras for a full 360° view.
Did you know?
The small intestine is several metres long, and before capsule cameras most of it was hard to see without surgery.