Capsule endoscopy is becoming more popular. Typically it is used to image the small bowel, which can be difficult to visualize using traditional upper endoscopy (EGD). Now, they are using it to evaluate the esophagus. Will it someday replace an EGD? Perhaps:

A funny thing happened five minutes after Dr. Amar Al-Juburi started an endoscopy procedure on Sandy Sellers. He was done. Sellers swallowed two cameras mounted in a clear pill the size of vitamin. After waiting 15 more minutes to make sure a computer captured the 2,600 images taken during the five-minute test, the woman was free to return to her job as a doctor's office technician . . .

. . . The pill, developed by Given Imaging of Yokneam,
Israel, is the size of a large vitamin. It passes from the body in 24 to 72 hours.

Sellers swallowed the pill while lying flat, then two minutes later the table was raised 30 degrees. After another two minutes, the table was raised to 60 degrees, then ultimately turned at 90 degrees.

"Gravity does the work," Al-Juburi said.

Sellers said Al-Juburi had told her the images -- which appear as though someone is looking into a tunnel Ö didn't appear to indicate any serious health problems, though more study is needed. "He's already read it and said it looked like it was pretty good," she said.

If a camera pill finds something that needs more attention, a traditional endoscopy will be necessary to extract tissue for a biopsy, Al-Juburi said.

(Kissel, "Woman Swallows Camera Pill for Endoscopy", AP/Yahoo! News, Jul.24)