Olympus pays tribute to the diversity of Israeli imaging:
First photo pill diagnoses and cures diseases as it sinks into the gut.
The best tool, today, for detecting problems in the small intestine is what is known as a photo pill. You swallow the capsule, which is about the size of a candy bar, and it slides passively through the digestive tract and takes random pictures as it goes. The device produces better results than the alternative - a long optical fiber that dangles down the throat with a camera at the end - but it is still far from the tiny submarine that appeared in the 1966 science fiction film, "The Fantastic Voyage" - that cruises around the body, looking for blood clots and destroying them.
Olympus medical systems from Tokyo wants to change the situation. The company is developing a capsule that is controlled by remote control and is equipped with a camera that operates at high speed, an ultrasonic scanner, a suction device for collecting suspicious-looking cells and a balloon that injects drugs into tumors or inflammations. The camera produces images at a rate of 5 frames per second and transmits them to an external receiver in real time. The operator steers the pill by rotating three opposing pairs of magnets around the body. The resulting magnetic field activates a tiny magnet in the pill. As the capsule rotates, the coils on its outer side help move it forward and backward. The tissue sample consists of a cell that uses negative pressure to extract body fluids or tumor cells that will be tested later. The medication is fed by a valve controlled by remote control, which opens and shoots the medication from a pocket that empties towards tumors or inflammations.
The researchers, who are still working on miniaturizing the drive and power systems, expect the pill to be ready for action within five years. Even before that - in a few months - Olympus will present a slightly less imaginative version. Unlike other visceral cameras, the pill - which is about 2.5 cm in size and is called an Olympus endoscopic capsule - moves in the intestines with the help of the natural contractions of the muscles and is equipped with a high-definition camera that is able to produce images of unprecedented quality.
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