©DR / Screenshot of endiatx website
Innovation
For now, this pill is only for inspection, but if clinical trials are conclusive, the device should make it easy to diagnose ulcers, lesions or tumors.
It is now possible to swallow a robot pill that can make a diagnosis from the inside. Her name is Pillbotcreated by the start-up Endiax. This pill was until now only a prototype, but clinical tests on humans have just begun in June.
Reality meets fiction! We can’t help but think about the filmsInner adventure (1987) or the Fantastic trip (1966). If you don’t remember, it’s the story of a group of doctors and a submarine that were miniaturized to treat a person from the inside.
Here, we find exactly the same principle, namely a capsule that we swallow, which is in fact a miniature submarine with a propulsion system to remotely control it, an HD camera to broadcast the video live, and lights to illuminate everything it sees. This device will allow doctors to travel inside the stomach and digestive system. All this, without needing to use an endoscope, good news for patients. We will no longer have this long tube that goes into the throat. Consequently, no more anesthesia, no more hospitalization. Just a pill to swallow.
In this first version, the pill will only be used for inspection, but this will already make it easy to diagnose ulcers, lesions or tumors. To detect, for example, colon cancer (the second most deadly cancer after lung cancer). Today, many people delay their diagnosis because colonoscopy makes them uncomfortable. With a simple pill to swallow, it will be much easier. It will even be possible to do it quietly at home. This is the credo of current medical research: to develop the least invasive treatments possible.
