Esophageal cancer is a terrible disease. Because of the very few symptoms presented early on in the disease, most patients aren’t diagnosed until the cancer is in an advanced state. If the cancer is detected and treated while it is isolated to the esophageal mucosa, patients have an estimated 80% five-year survival rate (5YSR). If it’s not caught until symptoms start showing, the 5YSR goes down to a tiny 15%. That’s why this tiny 3D camera the size of a pill — designed to help doctors find pre-cancerous tissue in the esophagus — will help save countless lives.

Barrett’s esophagus, a disorder caused in part by long-term exposure to stomach acid, increases the risk of esophageal cancer thanks to mutations in the cells of the organ. Upwards of three million people in the US have this disorder. While that is a relatively small percentage, it’s still an astoundingly large number. As it stands now, diagnosing Barrett’s esophagus requires the patient to be sedated. From there, the doctor runs an endoscope down the throat to look around and snip off a tissue sample.

With this new technique developed by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), patients don’t require any sedation. As described in Nature Medicine, getting the camera down the throat is as simple as swallowing it with a glass of water. Just about the size of a US penny, this tiny tethered camera can be lowered and raised in the patient’s esophagus to allow a complete 3D picture to be captured. Using optical frequency domain imaging (OFDI), this technique uses an infrared beam to view the tissue. Spinning at twenty hertz, this hair-sized beam of light gives the doctor a 360 degree microscopic view of the esophagus. Best of all, this method doesn’t cause the patient pain, and can be accomplished in a few minutes without the need for intense training on the procedure.

Gary Tearney, a pathologist at MGH, says “Moving toward the future, we’re going to be building pills that can diagnose diseases of the stomach, diseases of the small intestine and even diseases of the colon.” Not only does this offer early detection of esophageal cancer and pre-cancerous tissue, but it could have wide-ranging benefits for diagnosing other diseases for quicker treatment. This research has the potential to save millions of lives, and bring the death tolls of undetected cancer down dramatically. This is just another example of how medical technology can make our diagnosis and treatment of disease easier, cheaper, and faster.