Abstract
Ingestible wireless capsule endoscopy (WCE) is the one and only painless, effective, novel, diagnostic technology for inspecting the entire gastrointestinal (GI) tract for various diseases, such as obscure gastrointestinal bleeding (OGIB), tumors, cancer, Crohn’s disease, and celiac disease. Since the development of this technology, several companies have made remarkable improvements in their clinical products, but there are still some limitations that relate to the use of conventional wired endoscopy. Some of the major limitations that currently impede its wider application include its inability to repeat the view of critical areas, working time constraints, and poor image resolution. Many research groups currently are working on ways to solve these limitations. Presently, developing the ability to control the movement of the capsule, increasing its image transmission speed, and obtaining high-quality images are the main issues in the research area. A complex capsule with some therapeutic tools for the treatment of diseases of the GI tract also is at the beginning of development for the next generation of an active medical robot. In this paper, we report the status of several activities related to WCE, including improvement of capsule technology, research progress, technical challenges, and key indicators concerning the next-generation, active, medical robot.
Highlights
Angiography, ultrasonography, X-radiography, computer tomography (CT), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are conventional, indirect technologies for examining GI tract diseases, such as obscure gastrointestinal bleeding (OGIB), tumors, cancer, Crohn’s disease, and celiac disease. These technologies have low diagnostic yields because of their inability to show the wall of the GI tract
Probe endoscopy, is used for diagnosing diseases of the GI tract, but, in addition to being painful and creating discomfort, it is incapable of reaching some critical locations in the GI tract
Knowledge of the architecture of the human GI tract or digestive tract is very important for the appropriate development of wireless capsule endoscopy systems
Summary
Angiography, ultrasonography, X-radiography, computer tomography (CT), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are conventional, indirect technologies for examining GI tract diseases, such as obscure gastrointestinal bleeding (OGIB), tumors, cancer, Crohn’s disease, and celiac disease. In the 1950s, the first wireless capsule was developed, but it had very limited capabilities in that it could only measure a few physiological parameters of the GI tract, such as temperature, pH, and pressure. Swain et al (1997) developed several prototypes of a capsule endoscopy system and successfully conducted a vast number of experiments on postmortem and live pigs [16] In those prototypes, they used a miniature chargecoupled device (CCD) camera, a video processor, a 10 mW microwave transmitter with a 1.5 cm dipole antenna, a light source, and a battery. The poor image resolution and low frame rate confine the wider application of the capsules for sensitive detection Overcoming these limitations and developing the generation of such capsules with enhanced functionality and control is the objective of present research in this area. The aim of this paper mainly was to indicate promising ways for developing active medical robots along with an overview of present capsule endoscopy systems, including their limitations and the progress of related research
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