What are the risks for use of the camera pill?

Hi daisy97,

	The Camera Pill!  What’s next?

	The camera pill, officially called the Given Diagnostic Imaging
System, was developed by Given Imaging, Ltd., an Israeli company with
North American Headquarters in Norcross, GA.
[http://www.givenimaging.com/]

	The FDA cleared the camera pill for use on August 1, 2001, and states
in their press release that the pill is safe, without any side
effects.
[http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/ANSWERS/2001/ANS01094.html]

	The procedure is as follows.  The patient swallows a capsule, about
the size of a large vitamin, then goes about his or her business.  The
pill, which contains a camera, lights, batteries and a transmitter,
takes two pictures every second and transmits them to a small antenna
array placed on the patients body which in turn is attached to a
walkman-sized receiver worn on a belt around the patients waist.  The
pill is then excreted by…natural…means.  The gastroenterologist then
downloads the data from the receiver to a workstation and essentially
has an entire movie of the digestive system at work.

	A (promotional) video produced by Given Imaging can be found here. 
It is mainly geared toward doctors, but is easy to follow and outlines
the procedure in detail:
[http://www.givenimaging.com/videoaudio/m2a-capsule-hi.rpm] (real
video)

	The main advantage to this procedure is comfort and convenience. 
Prior to the camera pill, the normal method of detecting problems in
the intestines was to insert a scope through the mouth, all the way
into the small intestine.  Sounds uncomfortable.  This method was
incomplete, though, because the scope could not reach the all 20 feet
of the small intestine.

	The only drawback, which is the same as the traditional method above,
is that the eight hour battery life of the camera pill is not long
enough to make it to the large intestine, making colonoscopies and
other such procedures still necessary.  Also, you do have to wear a
bulky belt all day, and fast starting after your evening meal the
previous day.

	Of course, another drawback may be price.  While I wasn’t able to
find any hard costs for either a traditional endoscopic examination or
a Camera Pill exam, the pills cost docs $450 a pop, and the computer
workstation runs around $20,000.  Not to mention the receiver, antenna
array, belt, etc.

	I hope this information helps.  The bottom line is that the FDA has
determined that there are no side effects to using the camera pill.

Jared-ga

I did not find any new information with this search.  I found the same
information with doing a simple search through my web browser.  Thank
you.

No new infermation that I already easily got doing a simple search.

Hi,

The "camera pill" seems to be relatively safe, and after scouring the
web for information, I could find only one place where a risk has been
mentioned:

[ http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%22either+surgery+or+an+endoscopy+procedure%22&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&selm=3cec5a49.5697719%40news-server.cfl.rr.com&rnum=1
]

"There is a small risk -- less than 1 percent -- of the capsule
getting stuck, which requires either surgery or an endoscopy
procedure."

Apart from that, the pill seems to be very safe, better than earlier
techniques, and more effective at diagnosis according to the studies.

"According to Given, testing has found that the pill causes no pain or
sensations as it is traveling through the body, and it is naturally
excreted by the digestive system. "
[ http://sci.newsfactor.com/perl/story/15745.html ]

Hope this helps.

Regards,
rxsingh-ga

The original Reuters article can be found here:
http://reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=search&StoryID=997198

Regards,
rx

What was the primary source for the <1% figure?

daisy97-ga - this would have been a perfect opportunity to ask for
clarifaction of the answer prior to rating. There's no way jared-ga
could have known what you already knew, unless you had stated it in
the question.

Hello daisy97,

Just to add a few more bits of information:

From an article by Robyn Suriano of the Orlando Sentinal:

"Potential drawbacks include the possibility that the camera could get
stuck inside the small intestine - perhaps on a protruding tumour that
is causing the patient's problem. Surgery would be needed to remove
it. Also, unlike surgery or use of the endoscope, the pill does not
allow doctors to collect tissue samples from the small intestine. More
procedures still are needed for that."

"Additionally, doctors do not have absolute precision in determining
the location of an image. They have to make an assumption based on the
time the photo was snapped and the camera's expected position at that
point."
http://www.thenational.com.pg/0215/w2.htm


From the Cancer Research Foundation of America in an article prepared
with assistance from the American Society of Gastrointestinal
Endoscopy:

"As it exists now, the pill is not useful in detecting colorectal
cancer. The pill is useful, however, in discovering the cause of bowel
bleeding when standard upper endoscopy and colonoscopy find no
problems in the large intestine."
http://66.28.113.34/colorectal/aboutcolorectal/about_screenings.cfm


Best of luck!

inquisitive-ga