A CAPSULE ENDOSCOPE WITH ADVANCED IMAGING
A capsule endoscope is a pill-sized camera that can be swallowed by a patient. Our capsule endoscopes create a 360-degree image of the tissue surrounding the capsule. The endoscope is attached to a tether (a cord) that can be used by a nurse to pull the capsule up in a controlled way to image the inner lining of the esophagus. With our capsule endoscopes, the entire inside of the esophagus can be imaged and even the tissue layers below the surface are visible. The imaging procedure can be performed in a few minutes.
At Capsule Photonics we are developing tethered capsule endoscopes that combine two advanced imaging techniques: Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) and Targeted Fluorescence. The combination of these techniques is similar to PET-CT, where PET images tracers that highlight areas that show signs of disease and CT provides images of the tissue structure. Our capsule endoscope can do this with a much higher resolution (0.02 mm), which enables both visualization of the thin layers in the esophagus as well as very small tumors. Optical Coherence Tomography is an imaging technique similar to ultrasound, but because it uses laser light instead of sound it makes images at a much higher resolution. In the esophagus this creates detailed images of the different tissue layers, up to 2 mm below the surface. For Targeted Fluorescence, patients are administered a fluorescent tracer that binds to disease markers. To make early esophageal cancer easier to see we use a tracer that makes cancer tissue light up.