Chipping away at drug delivery: With a tiny implanted chip, filled with individual doses of medication, a patient might soon be able to forget all about daily shots--and perhaps even pills.
Image: MicroCHIPS, Inc., Massachusetts
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For people who face frequent needle jabs to treat chronic conditions, a new technology is on the horizon that might make treatment a lot less painful.
Researchers report that a new wirelessly controlled microchip, implanted under the skin, can safely and reliably give osteoporosis patients the daily dose of a drug that they need for at least 20 days in a row. The findings were presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Vancouver and published online Thursday in Science Translational Medicine.
Some 55,000 people in the U.S. with osteoporosis face daily injections of a bone-boosting hormone (known as human parathyroid hormone fragment, which is the basis for the drug teriparatide, sold as Forteo). But during a two-year daily regimen of the shots, close to three quarters of osteoporosis patients fail to take the drug as often as they are supposed to. High noncompliance makes this condition an especially compelling target for an automatic drug-dosing system.
"In a silent disease like osteoporosis, [patients] don't feel any difference, and they just give up the injections all together," says Robert Farra, co-author of the study and chief operating officer at MicroCHIPS, the company that makes the chip. Doctors can either preprogram the new device for a release schedule or send release instructions directly to it via a dedicated radio frequency.
For the study, eight postmenopausal women with osteoporosis had the chip—which is about three by five centimeters and can be implanted during an office visit—inserted under the skin around their bellies for about three and a half months. Daily doses of teriparatide were preprogrammed to release for about 20 days during the middle of the trial. Seven of the eight received most of their doses right on schedule, and each of these said they would opt in for another chip—most reported that they had forgotten that it was there.
Microchips like these could also be used for other conditions that demand discrete drug dosing, such as multiple sclerosis, for which some patients must inject a dose of interferon once every two days. Therapies that use hormones are particularly appealing for adaptation to microchip delivery because the body usually releases hormones intermittently—just as the chip does, Farra says. In the future, a device like this might also be able to help diabetics both monitor and treat their condition.
This sort of direct communication in an implanted device could help patients stick to medication regimes without having to face a syringe or pill bottle.
Remote controlled
The device can be preprogrammed or controlled wirelessly via the Medical Implant Communication Services (MICS) band, set aside for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by the Federal Communications Commission. And the device can also report back dose-delivery data to a computer-based system.
Scientists demonstrated that this sort of wirelessly controlled drug delivery might be possible in 1999. Some major technological hurdles needed to be cleared in the interim, Farra says.
The first challenge was figuring out how to create seals on the drug-holding wells that would stand up to moisture inside the body. Researchers solved this by using compression welding to create a hermetic seal around the well's metallic membrane. The second hurdle was figuring out how best to open those tight seals. The scientists settled on an electrical current that would melt the membrane on command. The final hurdle involved scaling things down—getting all the components and wells onto a chip that would fit comfortably under the skin.
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7 Comments
Add CommentA chip placed in some part of our body can serve to identify us better than any driver's license, passport or other typs of document, but besides the very low, but sure dangers of implanting it, it would be impossible avoiding that somebody gets a severe adverse effect from having a chip implanted, this would mean an absolute and irreversible loss of privacy, this kind of devices can track your geographical location in a 24 h a day, 365 days a year basis, and could be used for example, to link directly an expense you make in a cocktail bar to your bank account, without having to make nothing more than crossing a door. This can be also extremely useful in controlling terrorists, but in some way would put us in a situation too close to the one of cattle, dogs, cats and other pets.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStop drinking milk. Milk sucks calcium out of the bones . Causing weak bones and heart disease
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh, yes, your kid's playing with a radio-controlled race car and also gives you 365 doses of toxic media, killing you in a very horrible manner. ObamacarenotforU in action.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt takes a microchip to do this? Why not just something like a time-release capsule, an slow-dissolving, inert material inclosing droplets of medication which are released as the material dissolves?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wonder how well a system like this could be implemented to dispense insulin for diabetics? With the rate of diabetes on the increase in every sense this would be a real "Science" send.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCHECK OUT THIS RESEARCH GROUP OUT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON ... RESEARCH YOU COULD HELP WITH IF YOU HAVE A COMPUTER ROSETTA@HOME
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisImplant a microchip in my body that contains multiple doses of medication? Not on your life, pal. First, I would not trust them to do or get it right - as 'they' erred on my oral medication more than thrice; and I shudder to think of the potential ramifications that would occur if they botch something that's inside one's body.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSecondly,frequency interference is quite probable;
considering the plethora of electronic devices that
would be in the path between the "Remote Doctor" and the Microchip-implanted Patient. How does this grab ya:at every entrance to the medical facility that I patronize for medical care, there is a huge sign that instructs everyone to turn off their cellular phones prior to entering the building, to avoid the possibility of interference! Need I say more?
Thirdly; of paramount importance, is the compatibility/toxic factor of electronics with the Human body. Thinking along the lines of "electronic materials as waste" - electronic discards are categorized as "toxic waste". And, I'm not just talking about monitors - I'm referring to electronic circuit boards, electronic circuitry in general - I know for a fact that it is considered and labeled "toxic waste." So, the correlation I make here, is that something that will ultimately be categorized as toxic waste when it is no longer useful for the function it performs, is not something that I would evaluate as being suitable for implantation inside my own body! What are they thinking?
I find it absolutely incredible that the medical field deemed it appropriate or necessary that because "people can't remember to take their own medicine", that the answer is this microchip. WTF??!!! What an incredible expense and development endeavor - just because people can't remember to take their medicine, as scheduled? Now, here's an idea for those forgetful ones: perhaps they could set the "Alarm" feature in their cellular phone to remind them to take it on time. What a concept, huh?! I say the more you allow people to slack off and cater to them, the further the decline. If one has a medical condition that requires daily or multiple-times daily medication,then it is their own responsibility to care enough about participating in maintaining the regimen necessary for their own betterment.
Jgrosay (comment#1) might be on the right track - and this "for your own good" reason for implanting a chip, may be a smoke screen for a more insidious agenda.
How likely,on a scale of 0-10, would I allow one to enter my body? Zip,Zero,Zilch,Nada!