'Fantastic Voyage' One Step Closer

hondo77 writes "Researchers have reported at Digestive Disease Week (catchy name, eh?) that a human volunteer has swallowed a "video-equipped capsule -- about half the size of a grape" and that they were able to maneuver it. Sure, it's minus Raquel Welch and the rest of the crew but it's a promising start."

Comments

Fantastic Voyage was a great movie.

[Oriumpor]

It also includes shots like this. We're supposed to be looking at the wire she's holding. It's a plot point, damn it.

It's good to see geeks don't change.

Forgot the name ...

[fewnorms]

... but wasnt't there this other movie more recent (80's - 90's) where some dude got injected into some guys body and was able to get visuals from the outside world by "plugging" into the optical nerve? And yes, while writing this my buddy went searching and found it :) Innerspace, that's what it was called... :)

I wonder???

[zbowling]

I wonder if we can find that bagle i had in 1994 that still feels like its been stuck in my intestion for the last 9 years?

I hereby volunteer to be a test subject...

[Goonie]

I'm booked in for a colonoscopy next week. Let me just detail how the procedure works, and why swallowing a video camera capsule would be the greatest thing since sliced bread by comparison. The squeamish are invited to go read the next post (or indeed the next story...).

First, you can't have anything to eat after breakfast the day before. In the afternoon, you have to swallow about 100 millilitres (a few ounces) of very unpleasant-tasting and very potent laxative. This is a big improvement from my first colonoscopy I had to drink THREE LITRES (nearly three quarts) of even more unpleasant-tasting and equally potent laxative of which about a third got vomited back up again. The results ensure you spend the next three hours on the toilet. That evening, you repeat the entire process, by which time not only is your arse sore, you're kinda hungry and you're nervous about the procedure coming up the next day.

After a restless night and no breakfast (so you're getting *really* hungry) you cart yourself off to the medical centre. They then pump you full of sedatives and whatnot so that although you can respond to prompting, you'll happily lie there whilst the doctors shove their magic tube up your arse and take pictures, and afterwards you won't remember it occurring. Afterwards, you sit there whilst the most dramatic effects of the drugs fade (you're concious and semi-withit after about half an hour, but you're not allowed to drive the rest of the day), and then you need to get a friend or family member to pick you up, take you home, and make sure you don't start bleeding profusely out the arse (it's called a perforated bowel and there's a small but finite risk of it occurring in the process). You're supposed to be watched for the rest of the day.

I'll have to have a screening like this every couple of years (and probably annually as I get older) for the rest of my life. Believe me, the chance to replace that rigmarole (or even just the actual procedure) with swallowing a pill and sitting there whilst the doctor plays remote-control submarine would be absolutely wonderful.

Endoscopy capsules

[Muad'Dave]

A company that makes these capsules is Given Imaging. From their website:

M2A Capsule Endoscopy has been utilized to diagnose a range of diseases of the small intestine including Crohn's Disease, Celiac disease and other malabsorption disorders, benign and malignant tumors of the small intestine, vascular disorders, medication related small bowel injury, as well as a range of pediatric small bowel disorders.

There are Pictures and Videos here of what the camera records.

Amazingly, "In a normal (eight hour) procedure the M2A capsule generates approximately 57,000 images, at a rate of two frames per second."