A cancer diagnosis is a tough pill to swallow, but a new technology no bigger than the multivitamin you take every morning could help with early detection.
It's called the PillCam Colon2, a scope no bigger than the size of a pill capsule that, once swallowed, takes pictures of a patient's gastrointestinal tract. Doctors can analyze the images to see if there are suspicious tissues, polyps or cancers.
Dr. Mark Molos, a gastroenterologist at WestGlen Gastrointestinal Consultants, is the first doctor in the nation to use this technology.
See the PillCam Colon2 in action:
What is a colonoscopy?
A colonoscopy is an examination of the colon that we do. Patients come to our endoscopy lab and they are put to sleep under a general anesthetic. Once asleep, we advance this long black tube throughout the length of the colon and take pictures inside of the colon. We look for abnormalities and we take samples and biopsies.
What is the PillCam Colon2?
The entire camera - this is the scope we now use. They have miniaturized this colonoscope into a pill and everything in here - camera, recorder, everything - sends the images out to a recorder belt.
So how is the PillCam different from a colonoscopy?
The advantage of the PillCam - you can see it's the size of a multivitamin. Patients come in in the morning. It takes about 10-15 minutes. We have them ingest it, set up the recording apparatus. They go on about their work day. They can go back to work, they can go shopping, they can do whatever they want to do. They are not off a day. They won't need a ride home from the office because they won't need anesthesia.
How does the PillCam work?
What the camera does is it has 10 hours of battery life. It takes pictures throughout the colon which go to a recorder that they wear and at the end of the day we download those images.
Patients swallow the camera much like they would their morning vitamin. Image credit: GivenImaging
What's the future of the PillCam in Kansas City?
I was the first one in not only the region, but also in the country to do a real live patient outside of the clinical trial. We did that a couple weeks ago. I was able to see things on the capsule that I could not see in this patient with a scope.
During a colonoscopy, doctors can remove suspicious tissue. How can you do that with the PillCam?
If we see something on the PillCam, we still have to do the traditional colonoscopy. The difference is, if you take 100 patients who undergo screenings, 75 percent of them won't have positive findings. Those patients you eliminate. The 25 who do, they come back the next morning for traditional colonoscopy.
How does the PillCam change medicine?
Out of the people who really need it, only about 10 percent get it done. What we are hoping is that a test like this that is easy to do and doesn't require a day off work, anesthesia, those kinds of obstacles will really increase the number of people who get it done.
What obstacles stand in the way of having this adopted across the nation?
Some of the obstacles will be to get Medicare to pay for it, to get commercial insurance companies to pay for it. I think early adopters like myself will be responsible for working with insurance companies and showing them the cost-benefit and how this is a great tool and how we should be adopting it.
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