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Smart Pill Reports on Body from the Inside
An anonymous reader writes "In the 1966 movie "Fantastic Voyage," scientists enter the submarine Proteus, which is miniaturized so they can go inside the body of Jan Benes and save him. While such feats may be a ways off, a new smart pill "enters and exits the body through preexisting orifices" and reports on what it finds along the way, including temperature and pH. Sounds a bit creepy, but apparently it can lickety-split diagnose a disease that otherwise requires lots of uncomfortable probing."
The 26-by-13-millimeter smart pill, about the size of a multivitamin capsule, would go in and out natural orifices and report on everything in between
And we were worried about the government wire-tapping our phones?
There was some artist/magician that swallowed a camera pod a while back. I forget the magician/artists name, but I remember they swallowed a pod shaped camera so as to demonstrate the digestive process. I wish I could remember the link. Anyway, he swallowed this camera thing in front of a sizable audience, and it got stuck in his digestive system. They had to abort the presentation. It was fairly recent, hopefully someone else can remember it.
Here's hoping this means you swallow it and it exits through the other end and NOT that it enters said other end and claws its way up to exit from your mouth.
Sales of tin foil cumberbunds go through the roof shortly after this release.
Market experts baffled.
I'd better spruce up my colon.
like those small crawling spheres that enter through your eyes, and exit through your waste water outlet. Where I have seen that, in 'impostor'? I don't remember now.
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#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
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exits the body through preexisting orifices
... as opposed to the alternative!
I'm just glad it exits thru Pre-existing Orifices
Preexisting orifices? I guess we should be thankful they don't enter and exit through non-preexisting orifices - I can just imagine a doctor saying "There's this great new SmartPill but I'm gonna have to tear you a new asshole to use it."
-Peter
I can see the commericial possibilities... Fast food joint create new menu item. Slips a smart pill into each order and monitors each customer's reaction to fine tune the new menu item. Smart pill is recycled after customer's takes a dump in the restroom and resulting data is sold to the highest bidder.
Does it have little tractor treads for going 'uphill'?
About the release of their companies $500 disposable pill camera, the idea for which, they got form other companies identical products of years ago!
No film at eleven. But there may be an image of Goatse's rectum.
It is so amazing what doctors can do these days with $500, a tiny encapsulated computer, and a preexisting orifice.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Bender: "Yo old guy, why do we have to use those tiny micro droids? Can't you just shrink us?"
Professor: "Oh my no, that would require extremely tiny atoms, have your priced those lately? I'm not made of money, leave me alone!"
Remember in Aeon Flux, that mediocre movie, how they would swallow pills that would release something that would tap into their perceptions directly and could be used for instant messaging, so to speak? I wonder if a rudimentary version of that is really possible. Not the whole tapping-into-the-brain-through-neurotransmitters thing, but far cruder... A tingling sensation means the coast is clear; A belly-ache means go into hiding; Death means the CIA has chosen to consider you a liability that must be eliminated...
Good news! It's a suppository!
(P.S. Some of us enjoyed the old style 'uncomfortable' probing)
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
While inside the colon, "the transmitter's broadcast range is 300 feet".
Receivers in promiscuous mode. Sniff away.
...section opening at your favorite pr0n website...
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Any procedure not involving making new orifaces is a wonderful thing.
I'm going to be having a gastroscopy soon-ish, and the procedure appears to involve an IV. (It's probably just acid reflux. Probably. Hopefully.)
(Yep, TFA gave me the creeps.)
Good Lord! That's around 1" by 0.5"! This thing is huge! What kind of multivitamin capsules do these people take?
I don't know how thick an endoscope is (1 cm in diameter doesn't seem too bad), but I have never seen a capsule close to that size. Having a thick endoscope pushed down my throat by another person doesn't seem as hard as having to convince myself to swallow a 1" capsule.
On second thought, I believe drug mules swallow larger drug-filled packages. But I still would rather go for an endoscopy...
Status Report: Subject still stupid.
Okay, that's the best I've got.
The enemies of Democracy are
I had this procedure done about six weeks ago. The pill sized camera takes hundreds of pix and transmits the images to a unit I wore on a belt. After the time was up, the nurse opened the receiving unit and showed me the flash memory cartridge used to store the images.
Happily, I wasn't required to view the resulting pix, and the camera ended up in the local sewer system.
Painless, and you can do what you want while waiting for the six hours or so pass.
Here is some info about the procedure.
If by "a ways off", you mean "absolutely impossible", then I agree. Or, do you believe there is a way to shrink atoms down to a fraction of their size?
I am not trying to belittle the invention and am sort of happy that such a thing was made (in fact I knew about it at least 5 years ago).
However, as far as its applications for diagnostic or therapeutic purpose are concerned, they are very little. Most of the things in lumens in our body can be observed using putting an endoscopic tube (like a colonoscope or a flexible bronchoscope).
The advantages of an endoscope are
1) we can simultaneously remove a portion of the tissue for biopsy.
2) We can manipulate the camera to have a better look at the same thing from different angles.
3) The endoscope has multiple channels - one for the camera, others for pouring saline to clear the field (example to see the area if there is active bleeding and the blood obscures the view). Other channels can be used to insert tools for electro-coagulation or banding or putting a sclerosant to stop bleeding from a vein.
4) We can remove things like gall bladder stones in a procedure called ERCP.
All these things cannot be done using the pill.
So the applications of the pill is limited.
The best thing that the pill will be able to do, but what an endoscope cannot is to assess the normal peristaltic activity of our GI tract -- which means, how can the normal 'waves' of our stomach or intestine push objects like food. The rate at which the pill goes down, the portions where it meets resistance, etc. is important to know. To some extent we can do that not using an endoscope, but by giving barium or gastrograffin to the patient and asking him/ her to swallow it. However both those things are liquids (or semi-solid pastes). It is difficult to extrapolate in what way would a solid move, by giving the patient a liquid. Hence this pill, will help a lot as far as that is concerned. An example is given in the article. People suffering from diabetes have nerve endings which do not function well. As a result their gut does make the 'waves' properly and food gets stuck at a particular point. If the food does not move fast more of it will be absorbed (than normal). Hence if they have eaten something rich in carbohydrate, they will absorb more sugar (the last thing they need in the world!). There are many such movement disorders. This pill will help us identify or quantify those.
True stories of medical horror coming up. Avert your eyes! I have Chron's Disease, and one day I started bleeding profusely out of my anus. I was rushed to the hospital, and had a greased fiber-optic cable threaded up through my rectum. IT WAS THE WORST THING EVER. All I can remember is the nurse saying repeatedly "he's waking up again", and me going "nnnnnoooononggogoonnoo!" and the doctor going "Man! He's still going. Give him some more Demerol."
What the heck? I understand, that its true, mass-produced cost is far lower, but you could still feed a few draught-stricken African villages for months with the money.
Why is it not reusable, or, at least, recyclable — change the wrapper, keep the electronics?
If the consumers of the medical care were the ones paying for it, I bet, the number of people suddenly capable of overcoming their revulsions would've risen significantly...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.