Clinicians at Ayrshire Central Hospital have become the latest in Scotland to offer colon capsule endoscopy to help the early detection of bowel cancer and reduce waiting times for endoscopy procedures to be carried out.

The SCOTCAP (Scotland’s Colon Capsule Endoscopy Service) was pioneered in the north of Scotland and is being rolled out across the rest of the country as an alternative to colonoscopy for suitable patients.

Christopher Ray, Consultant Colorectal Surgeon and Clinical Lead for the project in Ayrshire & Arran, says the technology dramatically increases the number of people who can be tested:

“We are excited to be able to offer this an alternative to the conventional colonoscopy diagnostic method.

“Since the start of the pandemic, we have not been able to perform as many colonoscopy procedures in a day as we could before covid-19. This new procedure will allow us to see and treat more patients and reduce waiting times.

Mr Ray added:

“The colon capsule endoscopy is a painless procedure suitable for many patients. It uses two tiny cameras inside a capsule.

“Once the capsule is swallowed the cameras take pictures of the lining of the bowel, enabling us to detect or exclude cancer more quickly and reduce the need for other more invasive tests. Patients are able to return home whilst the cameras do their work.”

The PillCam takes 32 pictures per second – some 400,000 through the full duration of the procedure.

Guidance for patients issued by NHS Inform explains that anyone invited to have the test will be asked to attend a short appointment where they will be asked to put on a special belt housing a receiver unit before swallowing the capsule. They will then keep on wearing the belts for the rest of the day until the capsule is passed out of the system to be flushed down the toilet.

SCOTCAP began being rolled out across Scotland last year following a successful evaluation of patients attending community hubs at Broadford, Ullapool, Thurso, Inverness, Stornoway and Elgin.

That evaluation project was a partnership between the three northern NHS boards – NHS Highland, NHS Grampian and NHS Eileanan Siar – NHS National Services Scotland, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, the Digital Health and Care Innovation Centre at Strathclyde University and researchers at Aberdeen University.

The industry partners were the company behind PillCam, Medtronic, and Corporate Health which helped set up the SCOTCAP service.  

Bowel cancer is the third most common cancer in Scotland in both men and women with approximately 4,000 new cases diagnosed each year.

Read other stories about diagnostics:

Fears over forgotten diagnostic test backlog;  Bowel screening resumes after covid pause; Endoscopy plan published to tackle growing crisis;

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