Does camera pill work

Lingering question

This pill is alsofamiliar under the name of capsule endoscopy; and recently it has becomemore and more the center of public attention. However, there is but onecrucial thing that troubles many people who have heard about it, and even morethose who are considering it as a treatment aid – to what extent is this pill actually effective?

The treatment aid inquestion is one of the more recent discoveries in medicine, i.e. in the fieldthat is known as the medical science. The name of the pill itself points outto its structure – a pill that has a video camera inside and is employed forthe purpose of more efficient diagnosing of gastrointestinal anomalies andconditions that need immediate attention and treatment. In order for this to bemanageable, a person who is to undergo this kind of examination needs toswallow this pill. After this, the pill itself continues its motion through thebody, taking images of all the parts of gastrointestinal tract. This method isregarded as one of the most effective illness diagnosingmethod, and is extremely helpful in discovering such conditions as theCrohn’s disease, peptic ulcer, ulcerative colitis, irritable bowel syndrome andmany more. One important notion to remember is that, prior to taking this pill,a person in question needs to go on a fast (duration: 10h).

Effective or not?

Of course, one of theprevailing reasons why this is the most preferred method among all endoscopies isthe fact this way, doctors can acquire visual images of the person’s smallintestine, and this is not manageable by way of other varieties of tests. Also,given the fact that colonoscopy procedures rely on the method of placing a tubeinto the rectum of the person for the purpose of getting an image of the colonand the lateral portion of the small intestine, this will, however, give nopositive results in case the main issues concern the small intestine itself. Inaddition, it has been discovered that the camera-pill method is particularly helpfulwhen it comes to diagnosing the culprit in those people who are suffering fromsuch manifestations as pain in the abdomen, as well as bleeding.

In spite of itsincreased usage by doctors worldwide, what also needs to be pointed out is thatthis technique has certain downsides. Conventional endoscopies make it possiblefor the doctor to carry out certain diagnostic operations (biopsy, ultrasound and laser) by means of a retractable arm, and this is not manageable when employingcamera pill. Yet one more downside is that camera motions are too slow, and for this reason, it is possible for thebatteries inside to get empty too soon, not providing enough useful images. But, even despitethese minus sides, the camera pill has proven to be more than effective indiscovering a great number of gastrointestinal anomalies and conditions.Moreover, scientists are also working all the time on improving it, thus makingit even more efficient.