Improving Early Detection & Triage for Oesophageal Cancer with Low-Cost Capsule Endoscopy

Oesophageal cancer has a five year survival rate of 15%. This statistic is so low because early stage cancer in the oesophagus is difficult to detect. The current way of detecting oesophageal cancer is via white light endoscopy and taking biospies of random areas, which can be quiet costly. Therefore, large scale screenings are not an option. The aim of this project is to produce a low cost, pill sized capsule endoscope that can be swallowed by the patient to take advanced images of the oesophagus to screen for signs of oesophageal cancer.

A second application of this device is for it to be used in hospital triage to detect blood or blockages in the upper gastrointestinal tract.

The goal of this project is to develop a prototype capsule endoscope, at a low cost, to image the oesophagus and detect cancerous tissue. It is desired to image samples of ex-vivo tissue via collaborators at QMC to further develop this device towards its clinical translation.