Capsule camera films secretive small intestine, beams images

Bengaluru: N Renuka had popped many pills for her severe tummy ache; now, she would pop a camera. That’s what the doctor had ordered.
Renuka, 33, dutifully popped a glistening, transparent capsule, swallowed it down with a glass of water, and waited for it to go about its business. The capsule, fitted with a camera, travelled down into her tummy, and further into her intestines, shooting intimate colour images for 10 hours.
Recurrent pain in her abdomen had driven Renuka to doctors at regular intervals. But they weren’t able to place a finger on the problem. Finally, she was asked to undergo a capsule endoscopy.
As the capsule moved into her small intestine, it began to display the cross-section clearly, and doctors could spot small intestine jejuna ulcers.
This novel technology has equipped surgeons to get colour images of the small intestine without surgery. Real-time navigation is also possible with a magnet. Doctors say the multiple folds of the small intestine, which is 8-9 metres in length, make it very difficult to arrive at a correct diagnosis. The capsule endoscopy navigates right into the pipe, and can show up bleeding, cancerous growths or ulcers.
Before this, Renuka had undergone a CT scan of the abdomen in another hospital, which showed her small intestine had thickened and ulcerated. She was asked to undergo surgery.
Renuka had also undergone a special endoscopy, known as enteroscopy, which starts from the mouth up to the large intestine, and a biopsy diagnosed it as Crohn’s disease, a type of inflammatory bowel disease that leads to pain, bleeding and weight loss in the patient.
But her intermittent stomach ache didn’t pinpoint to anything specific. “All she had was a stomach ache. The cause was not recognized for more than a year. In early 2014, we got to know about the new diagnosis method, and we tried it. Now we know what the problem is,” says Renuka’s husband Muni Raju MV.
“There’s nothing which can reach the insides of the small intestine, except for the capsule endoscopy. Earlier, patients had to go through a surgery even for the diagnosis,” said Dr Ravindra BS, chief of medical gastroenterology, BGS Global Hospital. “The capsule is just like a vitamin tablet. We can stop the movement of the capsule at certain points, with a magnet. Three years ago, when the technique was introduced, it cost over Rs 1 lakh. Now, the cost has come down to Rs 35,000, which many can afford.”
After fasting overnight, the capsule is given with a glass of water, after which the patient isn’t given anything to eat or drink for four to six hours. After this time period, only liquids are given.
The capsule moves slowly through the intestine for 10 hours, and later comes out of the rectum.