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CNN Saturday Morning News
New Pill Helps Diagnose Intestinal Problems
Aired August 04, 2001 - 09:25 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
REA BLAKEY, CNN ANCHOR: And now we take a look at a high-tech pill that shows tremendous promise in helping doctors diagnose problems in the small intestine. This is a video pill. The patients swallow it, and then there's a tiny camera inside that beams back pictures for doctors to study.
Joining us now to talk about it is Dr. Blair Lewis of New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
Dr. Lewis, I can't resist. Please hold up the pill, show it to us, and tell us how you got involved in it.
DR. BLAIR LEWIS, MOUNT SINAI SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: This capsule was developed by Given Imaging, which is based in Israel. And they contacted me approximately two years ago because I specialize in diseases of the small intestine. The capsule has a camera, lights that you can see flashing, batteries, and a full-color transmitter inside of it that sends pictures outside of the body to a receiving device.
BLAKEY: Now, as I look at that in your hand, that's a sizable pill. That's not a small thing to swallow. But patients seem to tolerate it pretty well?
LEWIS: We did a study of 21 patients. Everyone swallowed the pill very easily. We actually asked them a questionnaire about the ease of swallowing. Everybody agreed that the pill was remarkably easy to swallow. It's approximately...
BLAKEY: OK, and we saw the -- go ahead.
LEWIS: I'm sorry. It's approximately the size of a large vitamin pill.
BLAKEY: A very large vitamin pill. We saw the little flashing lights. It would actually be taking pictures as it moves through the system, correct?
LEWIS: That's right. It takes two images per second, and it sends them out of the body by radio frequency to a recording device that a patient wears on a belt.
BLAKEY: So there's no need to retrieve the pill. I think that's another issue people get a little confused about. LEWIS: Right, it -- the pill is completely disposable. Perhaps the word is flushable. And the recording device then gets detached from the patient and connected to a computer workstation, and the images are then viewed at a later time.
BLAKEY: OK, and now is this pill readily available in doctor's office? I assume that a gastroenterologist would have this.
LEWIS: Yes, this is a tool for a gastroenterologist. FDA approval came this week, and I think that we will be seeing it, hopefully, in doctors' offices soon.
BLAKEY: And what is it about the small intestine that makes it so difficult to access?
LEWIS: The small intestine is the bit of gut that lies between our stomachs and our colons. And it's approximately 15 feet in length. And because of its peristalsis, its motion through the gut, and because of its long length, it has been very difficult for doctors to evaluate the small intestine. There are barium studies that can look at the small intestine, but these are difficult and have very low yields.
And endoscopic exams, which are tubes that get advanced through somebody's mouth, for example, can only look at the first part of the small intestine. And here we have a tool that actually gets peristalsis through the full length of the small intestine and allows us to diagnose.
BLAKEY: And this pill, however, would not be used by itself as a diagnostic tool, correct?
LEWIS: Right, the FDA approval states that it is an adjunctive tool to evaluate the small intestine. So it can be used in patients who have bleeding that have been otherwise not diagnosed, people who have abdominal pain, diarrhea, weight loss, suspected malabsorption. Or if they have a test that shows an abnormality of the small intestine that's not clearly delineated.
BLAKEY: And then finally, you're saying that it's just for the small intestine. Is it possible we might have a similar pill that would go even farther into the large intestine?
LEWIS: I think that there's a lot of people who consider this capsule as a replacement for colonoscopy, and I would actually caution your viewers that this capsule is designed strictly to look at the small intestine and not to look at the colon.
BLAKEY: OK, not quite there yet. Dr. Blair Lewis, thank you so much for joining us this morning. Fascinating...
LEWIS: Thank you.
BLAKEY: ... information about that little pill. Technology is something, isn't it? Wow.
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