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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Oct 7, 2015; 21(37): 10528-10541
Published online Oct 7, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i37.10528
Capsule endoscopy of the future: What’s on the horizon?
Piotr R Slawinski, Keith L Obstein, Pietro Valdastri
Piotr R Slawinski, Keith L Obstein, Pietro Valdastri, STORM Lab, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37212, United States
Keith L Obstein, Pietro Valdastri, Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37235-1592, United States
Author contributions: All authors contributed to this review.
Supported by (in part) The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering of the National Institutes of Health, United States, under Award No. R01EB018992; in part by the National Science Foundation, United States, under grant No. CNS-1239355 and No. IIS-1453129, as well as the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under Grant No. 1445197.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Piotr R Slawinski, BS, STORM Lab, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Olin Hall Room 406, 2400 Highland Avenue, Nashville, TN 37212, United States. piotr.r.slawinski@vanderbilt.edu
Telephone: +1-402-5702864
Received: April 27, 2015
Peer-review started: April 27, 2015
First decision: June 2, 2015
Revised: June 22, 2015
Accepted: August 31, 2015
Article in press: August 31, 2015
Published online: October 7, 2015
Processing time: 154 Days and 17.3 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Capsule endoscopy is progressing from a mode of passive bowel viewing to active intervention throughout the gastrointestinal tract. This review outlines advances in capsule mobility, in vivo position and orientation tracking, drug delivery, and characterization of capsule-bowel interaction that may aid in device development. Recent advances in capsule actuation schemes suggest that magnetic capsule manipulation is at the forefront of endoscopic research. Integration of proprioceptive capsule sensing may enable reliable capsule control with the potential to facilitate development of interventional devices. We expect to see clinical application of these technologies in coming years.