Tiny camera expands cancer diagnostics

Matt Kwong

• Last Updated: November 07. 2009 2:01PM UAE / November 7. 2009 10:01AM GMT

ABU DHABI // Doctors and police officials today demonstrated new wireless technology that will allow medical professionals to view patients’ digestive tracts with a camera that can be swallowed.

The vitamin-sized PillCams are now being used to screen for stomach and colon cancers at several hospitals in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, doctors said during the first day of the Abu Dhabi Conference for Capsule Endoscopy.

Dr Salem Awad, a consultant gastroenterologist at Mafraq Hospital, said the new procedure eliminates the discomfort associated with standard endoscopes.

Traditionally, a long, flexible tube would be passed through a patient’s anus to view the stomach lining through a camera on one end, he explained. “But these cameras will be an ideal way for screening instead of a colonoscopy, which can be time-consuming and painful,” he said.

Dr Awad said he has performed as many as six of the Dh7,000 examinations since the technology arrived at Mafraq Hospital three months earlier. He estimated that the PillCam itself costs roughly Dh3,000.

The procedure is roughly seven times more expensive than traditional endoscopy, Dr Awad added.

Abu Dhabi Police Medical Services was the first institution to begin using the devices last year, said Dr Shehata el Khouly, a specialist rheumatologist with the police’s Medical Services Administration.

“We are one of the first countries in the Mideast to use this technique, and one of five countries all over the world to have it,” he said.

Since last year, he added, the police have used the PillCams in 35 cases for police staff and their families.

This morning’s conference included several live demonstrations. In one case, a 46-year-old police employee swallowed the capsule with water as a live feed was broadcast to doctors and police officials in a separate conference room.

Dr Nigel Umar Beejay, a gastroenterologist from London, said the patient had gastrointestinal bleeding that could not be detected by previous endoscope examinations. “With this capsule, we are making inroads into early diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease,” he said.

The patient said the camera pill was very easy to swallow and felt comfortable.

mkwong@thenational.ae