Smart cancer pills track patients with tiny sensors in their medicines

In a first, a digital medicine firm has created ‘smart’ cancer pills that track patients with tiny sensors embedded into their medications, hence making cancer treatment easier.

Silicon Valley-based Proteus Digital Health has recently launched ‘smart pills’, a digital cancer treatment that are versions of regular medications embedded with a tiny sensor that can tracked by a patch worn on a patient’s stomach.

For the study, seven patients with stage 3 and 4 colorectal cancer at the University of Minnesota Health and Fairview Health Services were treated with digital capecitabine, a common chemotherapy drug prescribed with Proteus’ ingestible sensor, as per Business Insider.

The digital pills work with a tiny sensor that can either be stamped into a pill or included along with a traditional medicine and then encased in a translucent shell that breaks down when a patient swallows it. Then patients attach a credit card-sized adhesive sensor anywhere on their stomach that tracks when the pill is ingested, reported Business Insider.

Scientists create device to detect cancers through breath

The program captures, records, and shares data about the patient’s time, dose, and type of oral chemotherapy medication taken. Along with this data, information regarding patient on rest, activity, and resting heart rate was also recorded, which is then shared with the patient’s consent with their physician, pharmacist, or caretaker, wrote Wearable Technologies.

The information can only be seen by the patient and their designation individuals on a secure, mobile-friendly platform developed by Proteus. One of the researchers Edward Greeno said, “Proteus has given us a great opportunity to take our passion for better care management of patients receiving oral oncolytics and move that forward.”

“Currently, providers make decisions about oral chemotherapy based on patients’ best knowledge of their medication taking,” said Andrew Thompson, CEO and Co-founder of Proteus. “For the first time, digital oncology medicines give providers and caregivers new insights and ability to engage with more specific information in the remote care of colorectal cancer patients.

“Based on our data around the use of digital medicines in other treatment areas, we believe this will enable oncology patients to stay on their therapy longer, avoid hospital admissions, and have better response to therapy overall,” he added.