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Pill Cams: Investigating our Insides

301 views · Published 1 March 2016 · 1:27 · Indexed 27 October 2026

Channel: Lee Health · 2016 · Science & Technology

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Science fiction has become reality: doctors are investigating our intestines by having us swallow pill-sized cameras. The pill cam can travel the human body in about eight hours.

“Every two seconds this camera will flash and take a picture, will flash and take a picture. So you swallow it and as it’s going through the small bowel it’s flashing and taking photographs during the entire time,” says Dr. Michael Bays, who is a gastroenterologist on medical staff with Lee Memorial Health System. 

About the size of your daily vitamin, the pill cam travels effortlessly through the body snapping tens of thousands of pictures. It’s a gastroenterologist’s diagnostic dream.

“In between the stomach and the colon is about fifteen feet of bowel and so there’s lots of stuff that can go on in that part of the intestine that we can’t see with our endoscopes,” says Dr. Bays. 

For more than a decade, doctors have used pill cams to troubleshoot issues in the small bowel; including ulcers, tumors and Crohn’s disease. Based on its convenience and the detailed images it provides, these vitamin-sized capsules have been fine-tuned to accommodate more uses, including colonoscopy.

“They’re actually now coming out with a dual camera. The newer equipment has two cameras instead of one for evaluating the colon,” says Dr. Bays. 

Pill cams are exploring new frontiers, allowing doctors to go where they haven’t been able to in the past.  

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Lee Memorial Health System in Fort Myers, FL is the largest network of medical care facilities in Southwest Florida and is highly respected for its expertise, innovation and quality of care. For nearly a century, we’ve been providing our community with everything from primary care treatment to highly specialized care services and robotic assisted surgeries.

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