We know that social media is becoming increasingly wacky but we’re not quite at the point where we’re filming our internal organs. Yet. We’re getting close, however. The NaviCam is a medical device currently in development by researchers at George Washington University (GWU).
It is… what you’d expect to get from a product with this name. It’s a camera that can be swallowed. That’s not all that unique. They exist but current versions are reliant on gravity and the body’s whims to get where it needs to go. The team at the GW School of Medicine & Health Sciences has made a camera that can be navigated while it’s inside a person.
I’ll take the NaviCam, please
The point of the in-development pill-shaped camera is to replace a medical endoscopy. An endoscope is a device that consists of a camera at the end of a very long tube. It looks like a fun piece of equipment to play with… unless you’re the one with it stuffed down your gullet. This new swallowable camera would be a much better option. Once it completes testing, that is.
At the moment, internal cameras can be swallowed but not guided. The NaviCam intends to change that by giving medical professionals the ability to steer the dinky little hardware inside your body. How? Magnets, which are famous for their magical properties. Plus a controller based around the traditional video game gamepad. This will allow doctors to “remotely drive [the] miniature video capsule to all regions of the stomach to visualize and photograph potential problem areas”.
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Andrew Meltzer, a professor of Emergency Medicine at GWU and one of the minds behind this project, came up with the NaviCam after seeing the struggle that emergency room patients had to get an endoscope. Since it’s an invasive procedure, they can’t be done in a surgery. A magnetic pill-camera and a game controller, though… that’s a little easier to administer.
The NaviCam’s current outing, where some 40 patients were examined using the tech, has only revealed one major flaw — a traditional endoscope can also conduct biopsies of a specific site. The pill-shaped isn’t able to do so but it would be a less violent alternative if all the doctors have to do is take a look. They can always send down the endoscope if a sample is needed. If the tech gets out of its pilot program, something that seems very likely, you might be able to skip the endoscope (unless you really, really need one).
