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 Considering all of the unpleasantness surrounding the colonoscopy process — the preparation, the aftermath, the audience — researchers from CU Boulder are attempting to alleviate at least some of the discomfort.
A team of researchers, led by engineer and associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering Mark Rentschler, has built a C-battery-sized robot that can travel through the unpredictable colon. The robot, called Endoculous, is designed to move throughout the body on motorized treads, in search of irregularities. It is also capable of taking biopsies when irregularities are detected.
Although the robot is far from ready to be tested in actual humans, in demonstrations using a pink plastic tube meant to mimic both the size and shape of the colon, the robot moves through the tube almost effortlessly, equipped with a camera, an air pump for inflating the colon, a water pump for flushing it and a tool port for housing biopsy snares.
Although similar technologies do exist, such as pill-sized cameras that can be swallowed, offering patients a view inside their bodies, what will likely set the CU Boulder robot apart is that it is capable of stopping and swiveling around.
“For our robots to be able to reach those regions that you reach with a pill-cam but also be able to stop and look around — that could be a big paradigm shift in the way we view these procedures,” said Micah Prendergast, a graduate student in Rentschler’s group.
Hoping to change how colonoscopies are done in the future, the CU Boulder team is also exploring how to minimize the human role in Endoculus, making it possible for the robot to navigate the intestines, and locate and biopsy polyps, all without a doctor present.
Welcome news for anyone who has ever run into their gastroenterologist while shopping for socks at Target.
Source: Glenn Asakawa/CU Boulder
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