History and development of capsule endoscopy

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giec.2003.10.022Get rights and content

Section snippets

Implementing the first optic solution

The first assumption was that ogive-shaped optics would allow the intestinal wall to rub itself against the window thus cleaning it continuously while forming direct contact imaging. An axicon optic window was fabricated. Using a miniature CCD, these optics and a miniature incandescent light source, experiments proved this solution yielded reasonable images (Fig. 1).

A simplistic experiment was performed using a store-bought chicken to determine the frequency and power required to transmit a

From charge-coupled device to complementary metal oxide semiconductor

During 1993, our attention was called to an article published by E. Fossum from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, describing a new generation of video imagers requiring a fraction of the power consumed by the existing miniature CCD imagers [1]. The article also described how the new device incorporated all necessary camera circuits onto one small silicon wafer. This important development brought the capsule closer to reality. Another conceptual breakthrough was separation

Professor C. Paul Swain's research in the United Kingdom

In September 1994, and totally unbeknownst to Dr. Iddan, halfway across the world in the United States, Dr. C. Paul Swain, a gastroenterologist from London, England, presented the possibility of wireless endoscopy during the Los Angeles World Congress of Gastroenterology, in an invited talk entitled Microwaves in Gastroenterology.

The two groups meet

In 1995 Iddan first presented the idea of a wireless endoscopic capsule to Gavriel Meron, who at that time was the CEO of Applitec Ltd., specializing in small endoscopic cameras for fiberscopes. In 1997 the initial patent was published [4] and RDC Ltd. (a private incubator company), agreed to establish a new start-up headed by Gavriel Meron with Iddan as his advisor. In 1997 they became acquainted with the independent work on wireless endoscopy performed by Prof. C. Paul Swain.

In the fall of

Paul Swain continues

In 1998, our group visited the FDA in Bethesda. The outline of an animal study was proposed, which was to be performed on pigs in the United Kingdom. We were going to inject colored inks into the small intestine to mark areas at endoscopy and then see how many of these could be recognized at wireless capsule and push enteroscopy. It turned out that all anesthetic agents which we used completely abolished peristalsis in pigs that gastric emptying times were about 12 hours and that push

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge my debt to the Medical Physics Department at University College, London and especially to Dr. Tim Mills, principal physicist and my long-term colleague and friend. I thank Dr. Feng Gong who wrote his PhD in part on this development, Dr. Sandy Mosse who wrote his PhD in part on electrostimulation for moving the capsule remotely. I also thank my medical colleagues, especially Dr. Mark Appleyard for his help with the demanding animal studies, the earliest clinical

First page preview

First page preview
Click to open first page preview

References (7)

  • F. Gong et al.

    Wireless endoscopy

    Gastrointest Endosc

    (2000)
  • E.R. Fossum

    Active image sensors: are CCDs Dinosaurs?

    International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE)

    (1993)
  • US Patent No....
There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (0)

This article gives an account on the development of capsule endoscopy beginning with the seminal work done in Israel at Rafael Ltd. by Gavriel J. Iddan and the parallel efforts of C. Paul Swain in the UK. Since 1998, these two groups combined their efforts to develop the wireless video capsule endoscope.

View full text