The encyclopedia · Product & Design · Product decision · 1997-2001
Given Imaging put a camera in a pill so a patient could swallow the endoscope
Given Imaging packaged a camera and transmitter into a swallowable capsule, letting a 26mm pill photograph the small intestine with no tube.
Given Imaging
the move
The small intestine was the blind spot of gastroenterology: long, coiled and beyond the reach of a push tube. Gavriel Iddan, an optical engineer, imagined replacing the tube with a device small enough to be swallowed.
He and partner Gavriel Meron co-founded Given Imaging in 1998. The prototype — a capsule with a miniature imager, light source and transmitter — was tested first on a chicken from a retail store.
The PillCam SB capsule launched in August 2001. At 3.7 grams it needed no sedation and no tube; peristalsis carried it through the gut as it transmitted images, so a physician could finally see the entire small bowel.
why it works
- The small intestine is out of reach of a scope, so no one had seen it whole before.
- A capsule the body moves on its own removes the sedation and discomfort of an endoscopy.
- Transmitting the images wirelessly lets the physician read a full video, not a partial view.
what transfers
When the instrument cannot reach a long, winding channel, stop pushing the channel into the instrument — let the patient's own body do the travelling and shrink the device to fit.
what came after
Capsule endoscopy became a standard, patient-friendly way to image the small bowel. Given Imaging shipped its millionth PillCam in 2009, and the market expanded with the pill shaping how subsequent ingestible diagnostic devices were designed.
references
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