Italian researchers have developed a way to catch stomach cancer when it is in its earliest stages.
Researchers from the University of Urbino and a hospital in nearby Pesaro have designed a tiny capsule which people can swallow to see if they have the cancer.
The 14-by-5mm capsule is coated in gelatine which makes it slide down the throat on the end of a nylon thread with a plug to bite on.
Once inside the stomach, the gelatine dissolves, letting gastric juices into the capsule through porous plastic walls.
"Cells which have come off the stomach walls are absorbed by a tiny pad inside the capsule," said lead researcher Pietro Musaro.
Patients then whisk the capsule out of their stomach so that doctors can analyse the absorbed substance for the altered DNA found in stomach cancer.
"We tested it out on 20 patients with stomach tumours and a control group of 14 healthy volunteers, and obtained a 98% success rate," Musaro said.
The study is illustrated in the latest edition of the Annals of Oncology.
Stomach cancer is the second most common form of cancer after lung cancer, causing nearly one million deaths worldwide per year.
It is currently very hard to catch the cancer soon enough to improve outcomes because it causes very few symptoms in its early stages.
By the time symptoms occur, the cancer has generally metastasized to other parts of the body, one of the main reasons for its poor prognosis.
Metastasis occurs in 80-90% of individuals with stomach cancer.
People diagnosed in early stages have a five-year survival rate of about 75% while the rate is less than 30% in those diagnosed in late stages.
The cancer can develop in any part of the stomach.
It may spread throughout the stomach and to other organs, particularly the esophagus and the small intestine.
