Chinese University's pill camera makes checks for bowel cancer easier

Chinese University is offering a colon "pill camera" as an alternative diagnostic tool for bowel cancer, in an effort to spare patients the discomfort and embarrassment of invasive test procedures.

The university hopes the technology, which the European Union approved for use in 2009, will shorten the wait for tests and encourage more people to use it.

The device, just like pill cameras for the stomach and small intestine, comes in the shape of a pill with a camera on both ends. The user swallows and later excretes it, instead of having an instrument inserted through the anus to examine the colon.

"The pill camera swims on its own in the intestine and captures images along the way," said Professor Chan Ka-leung, director of the university's Institute of Digestive Disease, where the test is provided.

The institute found in a survey that 55 per cent of about 10,000 respondents believed screening for bowel cancer caused bodily discomfort, and 40 per cent said it was embarrassing.

The pill camera could address those worries, Chan said. He encourages people above 50 to be screened for bowel cancer even if they have no symptoms. Patients who cleared the test did not have to repeat it for 10 years, he said.

The pill camera gave high-resolution images of the colon wall similar to that in colonoscopy, and had an accuracy of up to 90 per cent in detecting abnormal bowel polyps and cancer, he said.