A Kent hospital has begun offering a new and painless method of being checked for symptoms of bowel cancer.
Instead of an uncomfortable and intrusive colonoscopy, involving a tube being inserted into the bowel, patients can now swallow a pill-sized camera that captures images as it passes through the intestine.
The first patient to use the technology when it was launched on 28 October at the Medway Maritime Hospital was 65-year-old Mark Freeman, from Walderslade.
He described the process as “straightforward and pain-free”.
“Four years ago I underwent a traditional colonoscopy” he said, “not only did I have to be sedated for it I was also in hospital for six hours.
“With the camera, the procedure from start to finish took about an hour. Once I’d swallowed the capsule I was also able to go home and carry on with my normal day which was just fantastic.”
The camera captures two images a second, which are downloaded from a data recorder worn around the patient’s waist, taking between five to eight hours to travel through the body, before it is flushed away.