X-ray pills to detect bowel cancer

         Traditional colonoscopies that are used to screen patients for presence of colon cancer can be physically unpleasant, much too invasive, and require diets and laxatives that leave patients feeling empty and exhausted. A new option, in the form of a pill that emits X-rays to image the colon, has just been cleared by European regulators via a CE Mark. The C-Scan System from Check-Cap, an Israeli firm, features a swallow able pill that has an X-ray source, a positioning system, computing components, and a battery.

         
        The patient first swallows a contrast agent and then wears special sensors attached to the skin over where the colon is located, and as the capsule moves through, the sensors are able to pick up imaging and location data that it transmits. Laxatives and sedation are not necessary, nor does anyone have to stick anything up your shithole, to use the word of the day in its literal context. The pill works off of two separate X-ray phenomena. One involves shooting the X-rays into the swallowed contrast agent, which fluoresces its own X-rays in return. This makes it and the contents with which its mixed more readily visible.

         The other phenomenon is called Compton scattering, which is exhibited when X-rays interact with electrons in the tissues of the colon wall and which results in some of the X-rays coming back to the pill. Combining these two readings produces a novel view inside the colon that has the potential to identify lesions that would need a closer inspection.