Capsule endoscopy
Conventional gastroscopy and colonoscopy involves passing a long, flexible endoscope equipped with a video camera down your throat or through your rectum to examine upper and lower part of GI tract respectively. Remaining middle part of your gastrointestinal tract, which includes the three portions of the small intestine (duodenum, jejunum, ileum) needs evaluation with other methods. Capsule endoscopy is a procedure that uses a tiny wireless camera to take pictures of your this digestive tract as well lower bowel. A capsule endoscopy camera sits inside a vitamin-size capsule you swallow. As the capsule travels through your digestive tract, the camera takes thousands of pictures that are transmitted to a recorder you wear on a belt around your waist. Your doctor will be able to view these pictures at a later time and might be able to provide you with useful information regarding your small intestine.
Who needs capsule endoscopy?
Capsule endoscopy helps your doctor evaluate the small intestine. It is useful in number of conditions like undiagnosed GI bleed, inflammatory bowel disease such as crohn’s disease, monitoring of malabsorption disease celiac, and screening for polyps and cancers.
Preparation
To ensure that the camera captures clear images of your digestive tract, stop eating and drinking at least 12 hours before the procedure. You might need to adjust your usual medicinal dose of certain drugs like aspirin, iron prior to the examination. Inform your doctor prior for any presence of a pacemaker or defibrillator, previous abdominal surgery, or previous history of obstructions in the bowel, inflammatory bowel disease, or adhesions. You may be given a laxative before your capsule endoscopy to flush out your small intestine to improve the quality of the pictures
Procedure
On the day of study, doctor will prepare you for the examination by applying a sensor device to your abdomen with adhesive sleeves (similar to tape). The pill-sized capsule endoscope is swallowed and passes naturally through your digestive tract while transmitting video images to a data recorder worn on your belt for approximately eight hours. You can drive, and you might be able to go to work, depending on your job. Your body might expel the camera capsule within hours or after several days and can see the capsule in toilet after bowel movement.
Side effects
Capsule endoscopy is a safe procedure that carries few serious risks. The capsule may get stuck up in bowel especially in narrowed part. Patients having previous abdominal surgey or tumor or crohns disease are prone to such complication. Hence doctor may advice you to undergo CT scan of abdomen prior to capsule endoscopy. Even if the imaging study is negative, there's still a small chance that the capsule could get stuck. So report immediately if you have abdominal pain, vomiting during the study period
Alternative test/option
Other test to examine small bowel is enteroscopy but it is time consuming requires sedation.
