{"id":822160,"date":"2026-11-02T22:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T22:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/822160\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T22:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T22:52:08","slug":"medway-hospital-uses-mini-camera-to-make-bowel-cancer-checks-easy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/822160\/","title":{"rendered":"Medway hospital uses mini camera to make bowel cancer checks easy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A Kent hospital has begun offering a new and painless method of being checked for symptoms of bowel cancer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He described the process as &#8220;straightforward and pain-free&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Four years ago I underwent a traditional colonoscopy&#8221; he said, &#8220;not only did I have to be sedated for it I was also in hospital for six hours.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;With the camera, the procedure from start to finish took about an hour. Once I&#8217;d swallowed the capsule I was also able to go home and carry on with my normal day which was just fantastic.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The camera captures two images a second, which are downloaded from a data recorder worn around the patient&#8217;s waist, taking between five to eight hours to travel through the body, before it is flushed away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Kent hospital has begun offering a new and painless method of being checked for symptoms of bowel&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":822161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-822160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=822160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/822161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=822160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=822160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=822160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}