What is Capsule Endoscopy?
Everyday science comes to us with a new thought, new vision and new ideas to explore and bring these thoughts and ideas into a useable form to facilitate human being. There was much advancement in the field of medical diagnosis and among such advancements one is the Capsule Endoscopy. We all are aware with the term “Endoscopy” which is actually a non-surgical method used to examine person digestive tract. The question here is that why there come a need to invent capsule endoscopy?? Endoscope is a flexible tube with a light and camera attached to it. This procedure is not really painful but it is slightly uncomfortable. Mostly people have mild discomfort like difficulty in indigestion or a sore throat. So by eliminating these comforts, scientist invents capsule endoscopy.
Procedure
In this procedure individual swallow a vitamin-size capsule and this capsule contain a tiny wireless camera to take picture of individual digestive tract. When the individual swallow this capsule, it travels through digestive tract taking thousands of pictures and these pictures are transmitted to a recorder that an individual wear on belt around his/her waist. The benefit of this endoscopy is that it reaches to the small intestine so that doctors easily evaluate the small intestine. This part of the bowel cannot be reached by tradition endoscopy or colonoscopy.
It is a disposable, simple, safe, reliable and non-invasive procedure and tolerated by the patient. This technique is cost effective in different clinical situations such as detection of small bowel lesions, non- steroidal anti-inflammatory drug enteropathies, celiac disease and small bowel tumors. Before the capsule is swallowed, 8 skin antennas are taped to the patient’s anterior abdominal wall and connected to the hard drive. After an overnight fast, the patient swallows the capsule with a few sips of water, then the capsule is passively moved along by peristalsis.
Two hours after ingestion, the patient is allowed to drink, while eating is allowed after 4 h. During the procedure the patient may carry on with his daily activities. The activation of this camera starts with the removal of capsule from its magnetic holder and takes 2 images per second and transmits these images by means of a radio frequency to a sensor array placed on a patient abdomen and from here to a recording device in a belt that patient. After those 8 h, the sensor array and recorded data are removed and the recorded images are downloaded to the computer. The capsule is then excreted with the feces, usually within 24 to 48 h
