Emerging issues and future developments in capsule endoscopy

Abstract

Capsule endoscopy (CE) has transformed from a research venture into a widely used clinical tool and the primary means for diagnosing small bowel pathology. These orally administered capsules traverse passively through the gastrointestinal tract via peristalsis and are used in the esophagus, stomach, small bowel, and colon. The primary focus of CE research in recent years has been enabling active CE manipulation and extension of the technology to therapeutic functionality; thus, widening the scope of the procedure. This review outlines clinical standards of the technology as well as recent advances in CE research. Clinical capsule applications are discussed with respect to each portion of the gastrointestinal tract. Promising research efforts are presented with an emphasis on enabling active capsule locomotion. The presented studies suggest, in particular, that the most viable solution for active capsule manipulation is actuation of a capsule via exterior permanent magnet held by a robot. Developing capsule procedures adhering to current healthcare standards, such as enabling a tool channel or irrigation in a therapeutic device, is a vital phase in the adaptation of CE in the clinical setting.

Small bowel endoluminal imaging (capsule and enteroscopy)

“…No significant differences in DY were found in comparison with the PillCam SB2 6. The OMOM capsule (Jinshan Science and Technology, China) provides a bidirectional transmission, allowing real-time modification of frame rate acquisition and light intensity 7. The CapsoCam capsule (CapsoVision, USA) has four centralised rotating cameras that allow for a 360° field of view and provides the longest battery life (15 hours) 7.…”

“…The OMOM capsule (Jinshan Science and Technology, China) provides a bidirectional transmission, allowing real-time modification of frame rate acquisition and light intensity 7. The CapsoCam capsule (CapsoVision, USA) has four centralised rotating cameras that allow for a 360° field of view and provides the longest battery life (15 hours) 7. Since the images captured by this capsule are stored onto an onboard flash memory drive, it has to be retrieved by the patient using a dedicated ‘stool retrieval tool’ (CapsoRetrieve, CapsoVision, USA).…”

Systematic Design of Medical Capsule Robots

“…While a selection of significant MCRs is presented in Fig. 1 and described in this section, the interested reader can refer to a number of recent review papers [14]- [16] for a broader overview of the field. To date, the most active field of research in MCR has been active locomotion.…”

Autonomous Retroflexion of a Magnetic Flexible Endoscope

“…This has motivated the development of several forward-driving endoscope modalities, of which tethered magnetic actuation has been labeled as most feasible [8], [9]. …”