Need a GI test? Open up and swallow a pill
Small camera enclosed in pill offers painless way for doctors to diagnose gastrointestinal disorders
STORY BY SCOTT POWELL/LEDGER STAFF WRITER

The Pill Cam is the first device capable of providing doctors with images covering the entire 21 feet of the small intestine.

A pill-sized camera swallowed by patients is providing two Gaffney surgeons with a new way of finding problems within the small intestine.

General surgeons Drs. Timothy Nelson and Maureen Burdett started using the Pill Cam with patients last week. Several patients have already swallowed the pill in attempt to help the doctors diagnose small intestine problems.

The pill contains a tiny video camera, light source and transmitter. It radios images from inside the body to a portable recorder strapped to the patient's waist.

The Pill Cam is the first device capable of providing doctors with images covering the entire 21 feet of the small intestine.

A patient fasts for 10 hours before swallowing the pill with a glass of water. About 58,000 images are taken and stored on a recorder on a belt worn by the patient during the day.

"The main advantage is that it is very small and completely painless for patients," Burdett said. "Once they have swallowed the pill, they don't feel it - and they can go home or go to work. The belt and receiver are brought back to our office at the end of the day. It takes about 15 minutes to upload the images from the recorder onto a computer."

Ledger photos / SCOTT OWELL Dr. Timothy Nelson, a general surgeon at Gaffney Medical Associates, views computer images taken with the Pill Cam. A patient swallows the pill that has a tiny camera inside to help doctors diagnose problems in the small intestine. It takes 24 hours for the pill to travel painlessly through the body.

About 70 million Americans currently suffer from gastrointestinal disorders. Esophageal cancer is the fastest growing cancer in the U.S.

Doctors can use the Pill Cam to help detect Crohn's disease, GI bleeding, and small bowel tumors. Crohn's disease is a lifelong inflammatory bowel disease usually found in the last part of the small intestine.

Burdett and Nelson are among the first doctors in the area to use the Pill Cam. They are part of Gaffney Medical Associates, the sister physician network operated by Upstate Carolina Medical Center.

In previous years, doctors had to put a long flexible tube called an endoscope into a patient's mouth and down the GI tract to see inside the small intestine. The surgical procedure required a patient to be sedated in a hospital and spend several hours in recovery.

"It has been very difficult in the past to diagnose problems in the small intestine because it covers such a wide area," Burdett said. "Many people become very frustrated because they have already been through long work-ups only to find the pain is still there. Our patients are very happy there is something else available."

Doctors can now use video images captured on the Pill Cam to diagnose medical problems located in the small intestine.

A similar video capsule is being tested as another option doctors could use to help diagnose colon problems, according to Burdett. If approved by the FDA, patients could one day take a pill instead of undergoing a colonoscopy exam.