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Tethered capsule endomicroscopy enables less invasive imaging of gastrointestinal tract microstructure

Nature Medicine volume 19, pages 238–240 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

Here we introduce tethered capsule endomicroscopy, which involves swallowing an optomechanically engineered pill that captures cross-sectional microscopic images of the gut wall at 30 μm (lateral) × 7 μm (axial) resolution as it travels through the digestive tract. Results in human subjects show that this technique rapidly provides three-dimensional, microstructural images of the upper gastrointestinal tract in a simple and painless procedure, opening up new opportunities for screening for internal diseases.

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Figure 1: Tethered capsule endomicroscopy schematics.
Figure 2: Tethered capsule endomicroscopy.
Figure 3: Tethered capsule endomicroscopy data from a patient with a diagnosis of Barrett's esophagus and high-grade dysplasia, and intramucosal carcinoma.

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Acknowledgements

We thank B. Puricelli for his valuable assistance in the conduct of the clinical studies and M. Shishkov for useful discussions pertaining to device design. This work was supported in part by US National Institutes of Health grants NIH R01DK091923 (G.J.T.) and NIH R01CA103769 (G.J.T.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Michalina J Gora, Robert W Carruth, Kevin A Gallagher, Norman S Nishioka, Lauren E Kava, Mireille Rosenberg, Brett E Bouma & Guillermo J Tearney

  2. Department of Gastroenterology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Jenny S Sauk & Norman S Nishioka

  3. Department of Pulmonology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Melissa J Suter

  4. Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

    Brett E Bouma & Guillermo J Tearney

  5. Department of Pathology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Guillermo J Tearney

Authors
  1. Michalina J Gora
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Contributions

M.J.G., R.W.C., K.A.G., M.J.S., B.E.B., M.R. and G.J.T. designed the devices used. J.S.S., M.J.G., M.R., L.E.K. and G.J.T. designed the study. J.S.S., N.S.N., L.E.K., K.A.G., M.J.G. and G.J.T. conducted the study. G.J.T., M.J.G. and K.A.G. processed the data. G.J.T. and M.J.G. wrote the manuscript, and all authors contributed to the review and editing of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Guillermo J Tearney.

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Competing interests

G.J.T., B.E.B. and M.J.S. receive sponsored research funding from Ninepoint Medical. G.J.T. amd B.E.B. are consultants for Ninepoint Medical. G.J.T., N.S.N., B.E.B. and M.J.S. have the rights to receive royalties under a licensing arrangement between Massachusetts General Hospital and Ninepoint Medical.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Video 1

Tethered capsule endomicroscopy fall-through dataset from a normal volunteer, obtained in vivo. (MOV 60498 kb)

Supplementary Video 2

Tethered capsule endomicroscopy pull-back dataset from a patient with known Barrett's esophagus, obtained in vivo (MOV 36801 kb)

Supplementary Video 3

Three-dimensional fly through movie, rendered from the Supplementary Movie 2 dataset (MOV 47758 kb)

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Gora, M., Sauk, J., Carruth, R. et al. Tethered capsule endomicroscopy enables less invasive imaging of gastrointestinal tract microstructure. Nat Med 19, 238–240 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.3052

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