The GI tract and its components like the mucosal lining play an important role of preventing harmful substances from finding their way into the bloodstream. When this mucosal lining is compromised, serious consequences like the entry of undigested food, toxins and bacteria into the bloodstream result. “Leaky gut” is responsible for conditions like inflammatory bowel disease.
Existing tools for monitoring the mucus lining in the gut have limitations, such as being invasive and not providing continuous tracking. Approaches like endoscopy also don’t provide data on the entire GI tract and the updates they provide don’t come in real time. There exists an urgent need to find better tools that clinicians can rely on to assess mucus lining health and design patient treatment plans early enough.
That is where this new swallowable pill designed by a team of scientists and engineers comes in. This smart, small and powerful device only needs to be swallowed by a patient in order for real-time tracking of the mucosal barrier to take place continuously. The method is non-invasive and provides comprehensive data that can help doctors to identify early changes in the mucus barrier and therefore take action early. It can also help in monitoring how the patient is responding to the treatment being provided.
Instead of relying on wires to transmit data, the pill communicates using Bluetooth, making it ideal for patients since they avoid the discomfort and pain associated with having sizeable gadgets pushed down their esophagus.
The pill has four probes that act as sensors and it is coated with a customized conductive polymer to detect the tiniest of changes to the permeability of the mucus lining in the gut. A LED light is triggered on the device each time the sensors identify areas with altered permeability, and this light alerts doctors to the exact problem areas in the gut.
The device was validated during its design by using it in excised healthy and compromised mouse and pig intestines. It accurately detected changes in bioimpedance levels expected in the healthy intestines and the ones with compromised mucus linings.
The potential for this pill is broad. It could be used to track conditions like Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and other inflammatory conditions in the gut. It could also be used to track how well administered treatments are working and changes can quickly be made when the data the pill relays shows that the mucus layer isn’t responding appropriately to the medication provided.
Clinical trials will be required before the pill becomes available for general use in diagnosis and treatment monitoring. It could also be tweaked to detect several GI problems, such as certain cancers, food allergies and infections.
Inflammation poses such serious problems to human health and advances like these which make it easier to track mucosal barrier integrity provide breakthroughs that could transform how doctors quickly identify the exact issue a patient has. Hopefully, the heavy investments that firms like Soligenix Inc. (NASDAQ: SNGX) are making in developing novel anti-inflammatory therapeutics will yield desired results and help in combating inflammatory ailments.
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