Medical research New camera pill helps diagnose the larynx and colorectal cancer

Camera for swallowing facilitates bowel examinations
There are some diseases that are generally difficult to detect. Sometimes it would be more practicable for doctors if they could just look straight into the patient. With a newly developed miniature camera, the internal examination of sufferers should now be easier and more reliable.
To quickly detect, for example, bowel and throat cancers, British scientists from Glasgow University have now developed a swallowable miniature camera. Such small cameras have been used for some time, for example, to perform bowel examinations. The special feature of this new "camera pill" is that it uses fluorescent light for the first time to extend its diagnostic functions. The results of their current research, the physicians now published in the journal "Scientific Reports".

Mini camera can detect colon cancer faster. Picture: ag visual - fotolia

Camera pill instead of endoscope
For intestinal examinations, it has been possible for some time to use so-called video pills. This type of internal viewing is not as uncomfortable as, for example, the use of endoscopes. However, such miniature cameras have had a major disadvantage. The spectrum of visible light used greatly restricts the view through a video pill, the British scientists explained in their study. The new camera pill is not yet in clinical use. The developers are working to extend the systems to new areas. So it is the pill in the future also be possible to use ultrasound.

New system allows more accurate error-free diagnostics
The new developed video pill is very small and energy-efficient enough to take pictures of the entire human gastrointestinal tract over a period of 14 hours. Mohammed Al-Rawhani. The new system can also be used to track antibodies through the human body. These antibodies are used to treat cancers. The new camera pill could help to mark such diseased areas. So a new way would be created to treat cancer. The use of so-called video pills is a valuable new technique that could help medical professionals make fewer false predictions about cancer. Thus, the use of the new system could lead to more effective treatment for cancer in the future. Al-Rawhani in the study.

Industry plans to bring camera pill as fast as possible to the market
The fluorescence imaging technique is already a solid diagnostic tool in medicine, but the technique is very expensive, too bulky and unwieldy. For this reason, such a technique is usually used only in large laboratories. But now the team of scientists has succeeded for the first time in using fluorescence imaging with an advanced "semiconductor one-pixel imaging technique" in a camera pill. The system is an exciting development and offers a valuable new opportunity for gastrointestinal imaging, said project leader Prof. David Cumming. There is still a lot to do before such video pills are commercially produced and ready for clinical use. But the researchers are already in initial talks with the manufacturing industry to bring the product to the market in the near future, added the physician. The research is now focused on extending features of the new system, such as the use of ultrasound.