BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Imagine your body for a moment as the set for a movie. For some patients, it's happened already. Keith Oppenheim reports that doctors diagnose potentially internal illnesses in a fascinating new way. Here's Keith.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The capsule is going to take video of your entire (ph) intestine while it passes through, sort of like "The Fantastic Voyage."</s>KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For Tom Munz (ph), the voyage begins by putting a capsule with a strobing light in his mouth. It's actually a tiny camera, and with a few gulps of water, this video pill is on its way. There is the teeth as it passes over your tongue, and quickly down the esophagus into the stomach. Munz suffers from an intestinal disorder called Crone's Disease. He is first fitted with sensors and wears a belt with a data recorder that receives images from the wireless camera. After swallowing the pill, Munz goes to work, and later returns the data recorder, which essentially downloads a movie of his digestive track. Sure enough, just three of the 58,000 images collected show an ulcer, indicating Munz's condition is improving. Worldwide, only about 3,000 patients have taken the video pill. (on camera): And unless the procedure is done in a research study, it can be expensive, about $2,000, generally not covered by insurance. Still,, some doctors hope that the video pill will become part of mainstream medicine because of what it can do to diagnose certain patients.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: we are able to find thing with using the capsule video and the scope that we have not found before, and so therefore can institute appropriate treatment.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I like seeing the actual results. It's like kind of a weight off your shoulders, because you actually know what's going on. Keith Oppenheim, CNN, Chicago.
Doctors Diagnose Potentially Internal Illnesses in New Way