I have written a lot about the coming radical transformation of medicine where traditional surgery will be replaced by remote sensing and interventional devices. You can read background about another pillcam here and a cardiac rover here.

Medgadget reports on the development of the next stage of the Pillcam – a swallowable remote gut camera. Called Nemo – they describe it as:

The objective of the NEMO project is to increase patient compliance with currently recommended screening guidelines by developing an advanced cancer screening system that is patient-friendly, highly sensitive and specific for early detection of cancer. To achieve this NEMO will converge optical technologies with Nano-technologies, biosensing and maneuvering technologies to create a unique PillCam capsule endoscope capable of secretion analysis and the detection of marked and deep tissue disorders. The consortium believes the combination of the image and molecular analysis to mark the tumor may provide a novel and effective medical device for mass screening for GI cancer

A company press release is here.

What is so exciting here is companies are now making the move to adding next generation diagnostic capabilities to older devices.  It’s just a matter of time until metabolomics, proteomics, and noninvasive optical biopsies are incorporated.