Travel through the digestive system - follow the capsule camera from the mouth to the rectum
Occasionally, physicians use a small camera, no bigger than a pill, when they are unable to find the underlying cause of a discomfort located in the stomach or the intestines. The small capsule camera is swallowed by the patient, and travels the same way as the food we eat – down the oesophagus, through the stomach and into the small intestine, the large intestine, and finally the rectum before it ends up in the toilet some day later.
Throughout the journey, the camera takes a vast number of images. It has a small battery and a bright light that illuminates the darkness inside the stomach and intestines. The images taken by the capsule camera are transmitted wirelessly to a small computer on the outside of the body as it goes along.
See how the capsule camera can be used in this video on YouTube (in Swedish)
Aktuellt om Vetenskap & Hälsa, film from 4 December 2008: A camera of the size of a small piece of chocolate can be swallowed to investigate tricky stomach problems. On its way through the intestines, it takes nearly 60 000 pictures, and is able to reach places as no other method of examination can. Physician Ervin Toth at Lund University and the Skåne University Hospital in Malmö is a Swedish pioneer of this method.
Aktuellt om Vetenskap & Hälsa has spoken to Physician Ervin Toth, who has long worked with the capsule camera, about how the technology works and how it has evolved. Film of from 5 June 2012.
Aktuellt om Vetenskap & Hälsa (www.vetenskaphalsa.se) has compiled the films below, showing the capsule camera’s journey from the mouth to the rectum, step by step.
Video 1 - the mouth and stomach | Video 2 - oesophagus and the gastroesophageal sphincter | Video 3 - the stomach.
Video 4 - the stomach and pylorus | Video 5 - the duodenum | Video 6 - the small intestine.
Video 7 - the transition to the colon | Video 8 - the colon (large intestine) | Video 9 - the rectum.