[TATTLETALE] Pill that reports when it's been swallowed can improve adherence
In an advance that could help ensure people are taking their medication on schedule, engineers at MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, have designed a pill that can report when it has been swallowed. The new reporting system, which can be incorporated into existing pill capsules, contains a biodegradable radio frequency antenna. After it sends out the signal that the pill has been consumed, most components break down in the stomach, whereas a tiny radio frequency (RF) chip passes out of the body through the digestive tract.
Patients’ failure to take their medicine as prescribed is a major challenge that contributes to hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths and billions of dollars in health care costs annually, according to the researchers. The MIT team created an RF-based system that would be bioresorbable, meaning that it can be broken down and absorbed by the body --to minimize the potential risk of any blockage of the GI tract. The antenna that sends out the RF signal is made from zinc, and it is embedded into a cellulose particle.
Once the capsule is swallowed, the coating breaks down, releasing the drug along with the RF antenna. The antenna can then pick up an RF signal sent from an external receiver and, working with a small RF chip, send back a signal to confirm that the capsule was swallowed. This communication happens within 10 minutes of the pill being swallowed.
The RF chip, which is about 400 by 400 micrometers, is an off-the-shelf chip that is not biodegradable and would need to be excreted through the digestive tract. All of the other components would break down in the stomach within a week.
Tests in an animal model showed that the RF signal was successfully transmitted from inside the stomach and could be read by an external receiver at a distance up to 2 feet away. If developed for use in humans, the researchers envision designing a wearable device that could receive the signal and then transmit it to the patient’s healthcare team.
To download the full article, published in Nature Communications, click here
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