TimmyHDigestable Capsule Cameras - Medical science gets on the inside
June 26th 2008 05:43
Researchers in Germany have developed a tiny magnetic device that will allow them to guide a camera inside the body. Procedures that are currently done using an endoscope are uncomfortable for the patient, require local anaesthetic and hours of recovery time. The hope is that this new capsule camera could eliminate all this. In the case of operations on the stomach or the oesophagus, procedures could become far less invasive.
Frank Volke, head of the research team at the Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering in Sankt Ingbert, who developed the technology says, “The doctor can hold it in his hand during the examination and move it up and down the patient's body. The camera inside follows this motion precisely.”
Pill cameras have been used for about the last five years but they have been notoriously bad at getting images of the stomach and oesophagus because of the lack of control which doctors have over them.
“The greatest limitation of the current generation of capsule systems is the inability to control the device,” says Mark Schattner, a gastroenterologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, in New York.
He believes that the control developed by Volke's team could reduce those limitations. “A system that allows accurate and real-time directional control of the capsule using an external magnetic field is a significant advance,” he says.
Unlike its earlier versions, the controllable pill camera has a magnetic collar that allows the physician to control the position and angle of the camera. “The control field and movement are produced completely and without contact outside the body,” says Volke. “Changing the intensity of the magnetic field at a distance, changes the position of the camera.”
“Doctors will be able to stop the camera in the oesophagus, move it up and down and turn it, and adjust the angle of the camera as required. This allows them to make a precise examination of the junction between the oesophagus and the stomach,” says Volke.
The innovation has gone into production in Europe and is expected to be available in worldwide to those hospitals which choose to use it by 2010. good news for all.
Frank Volke, head of the research team at the Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering in Sankt Ingbert, who developed the technology says, “The doctor can hold it in his hand during the examination and move it up and down the patient's body. The camera inside follows this motion precisely.”
Pill cameras have been used for about the last five years but they have been notoriously bad at getting images of the stomach and oesophagus because of the lack of control which doctors have over them.
“The greatest limitation of the current generation of capsule systems is the inability to control the device,” says Mark Schattner, a gastroenterologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, in New York.
He believes that the control developed by Volke's team could reduce those limitations. “A system that allows accurate and real-time directional control of the capsule using an external magnetic field is a significant advance,” he says.
Unlike its earlier versions, the controllable pill camera has a magnetic collar that allows the physician to control the position and angle of the camera. “The control field and movement are produced completely and without contact outside the body,” says Volke. “Changing the intensity of the magnetic field at a distance, changes the position of the camera.”
“Doctors will be able to stop the camera in the oesophagus, move it up and down and turn it, and adjust the angle of the camera as required. This allows them to make a precise examination of the junction between the oesophagus and the stomach,” says Volke.
The innovation has gone into production in Europe and is expected to be available in worldwide to those hospitals which choose to use it by 2010. good news for all.
| 62 |
| Vote |
subscribe to this blog
