The human torso contains up to 26 feet (8 m) of intestines. When someone suffers a disorder of the gastrointestinal tract, it can be a difficult task to locate the problem in such an expansive length of tissue.
A traditional endoscopy involves a thin fiberoptic tube being Inserted into the patient and images of the walls of the subject's innards being relayed to a television screen. It is a minimally invasive procedure and can cause the patient spmemild discomfort.
However, as the technology of digital cameras has become smaller and more compact, an alternative has appeared. Created by a team of doctors led by Dr. Tarun Mullick in Baltimore, Maryland, the first wireless capsule endoscopy unit came into being in 1985. The camera-in-a-capsule is useful for spotting things such as vascular lesions, tumors, celiac disease, and Crohn's disease in areas that other noninvasive methods fail to reach. The capsule is roughly the size of an ordinary vitamin pill and is swallowed with water.
Much like the endoscopic tube, the capsule contains a light source and lens system, but it also contains equipment that acquires and transmits images to a receiver that the patient wears on a belt. After being swallowed, the camera takes an eight- hour trip through the entire length of gastrointestinal tract. On its journey it takes hundreds of color images of the patient's esophagus, stomach, and small and large intestines, enabling a diagnosis to be made based on comprehensive visual information.
