April 29, 2024

High-Tech “Smart Pills” Transform Diagnosis and Treatment of Gastrointestinal Disorders

An example of the size of the sensing unit. Credit: MIT
This system was successfully modeled in the intestinal systems of large animals. The findings are reported in the paper titled “Location-aware smart-pills for wireless tracking of gastrointestinal characteristics,” published today (February 13, 2023) in the journal Nature Electronics.
It is estimated that intestinal conditions impact more than one-third of the worlds population, making it essential to establish more accurate and reliable diagnostic and treatment methods. Particularly, several diseases such as gastroesophageal reflux illness and gastroparesis can result from abnormal gut motility where ingested food passes too rapidly or slowly, making it specifically important to track the foods speed through the gut.
” The smart pill our group has established represents a more effective and accessible method to examining GI motility that can benefit both patients and medical suppliers,” said Ramadi. “This is a new frontier for medical diagnosis and evidence-based treatment, and has the prospective, with more research study and improvement, to reinvent how we can most effectively address health difficulties that impact countless people worldwide.
Recommendation: “Location-aware ingestible microdevices for wireless monitoring of gastrointestinal characteristics” 13 February 2023, Nature Electronics.DOI: 10.1038/ s41928-023-00916-0.
Ramadi is the lead author of the research study, together with Saransh Sharma, a college student at Caltech. Giovanni Traverso (MIT), Mikhail Shapiro, and Azita Emami are senior authors of the paper.
Financing: National Science Foundation, Rothenberg Innovation Initiative, Heritage Medical Research Institute.

This ingestible sensor whose area can be monitored as it moves through the gastrointestinal tract, is an advance that could assist medical professionals more easily detect intestinal motility disorders such as gastroesophageal reflux disease and gastroparesis. Credit: MIT
The ingestible pills make use of magnetic fields to track motion through the Gastrointestinal system with greater resolution and precision.
A team of researchers led by Khalil Ramadi, Assistant Professor of Bioengineering at NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD), have actually developed a brand-new, non-invasive system to assist in the medical diagnosis and treatment of gastrointestinal motility disorders. To track the movement of an ingestible “smart pill” through the Gastrointestinal (GI) system, the researchers have generated 3D electromagnetic field gradients using high-frequency electromagnetic coils that encode each spatial point with an unique electromagnetic field magnitude. The field magnitude is determined and transferred by the “wise tablet” to determine its accurate location, which is then interacted to a smart device using Bluetooth innovation.
Existing “smart tablets” do not use the big field-of-view (FOV), high spatial resolution, and completely wireless operation that the 3D magnetic field gradient developed by the scientists permits. This new technology holds the capacity for future usage in clinical applications such as more accurate and effective diagnosis of gastrointestinal disorders and the accurate targeting of healing interventions and minimally-invasive procedures.

A group of scientists led by Khalil Ramadi, Assistant Professor of Bioengineering at NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD), have actually established a new, non-invasive system to assist in the diagnosis and treatment of intestinal motility conditions. To track the motion of an ingestible “clever tablet” through the Gastrointestinal (GI) system, the scientists have created 3D magnetic field gradients using high-frequency electro-magnetic coils that encode each spatial point with a distinct magnetic field magnitude. The findings are reported in the paper titled “Location-aware smart-pills for wireless monitoring of gastrointestinal characteristics,” published today (February 13, 2023) in the journal Nature Electronics.
It is estimated that intestinal conditions affect more than one-third of the worlds population, making it important to establish more accurate and efficient diagnostic and treatment techniques.