suffering from a disease !!! had tablets ?? will they have a direct effect on the affected area ???

!!! So wanna have a tablet which is guided by the doctor untill it reaches the problem area then get an E-pill ..!!!

Philips Research in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, has developed a prototype for a pill that can be programmed to navigate toward a specific trouble spot in the body and deposit its medicine, radioing dispatches to the doctor as it travels. The technology, being tested in animals but not yet in humans, may one day be used to treat digestive tract disorders like colitis and Crohns disease, said Peter van der Schaar, a gastroenterologist in Heerlen, also in the Netherlands. He worked with Philips in developing the Intelligent Pill device, which Philips calls the iPill for short. The iPill, a plastic capsule taken with food or water, is intended to travel through the digestive system naturally, typically within about 24 hours, dispensing its medicine at specific locations along the way, van der Schaar said. Localized drug delivery has advantages: It can mean smaller doses of a drug, as well as fewer problems when the drug travels through the body in the bloodstream. The drugs might have fewer side effects while having a higher therapeutic value, he said. About the size of a plump multivitamin, the iPill is one-third medicine and two-thirds microprocessor, battery, antenna and other miniaturized equipment. The pill can send data to a control station about temperature, for example, and the time that has elapsed since it was swallowed. And the medical staff can then respond.

If a doctor sees an adverse reaction, said Steve Klink, a senior communications manager at Philips Research, an arm of Philips Electronics, a signal could be sent to override the iPill and not distribute any more of the drug. Michael Cima , a professor of materials science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that electronic systems for localized drug delivery were already being used in clinical testing of pharmaceutical products. For example, a volunteer swallows a pill that is tracked with X-rays and programmed to release its medicine at a specific spot in the gastrointestinal tract. Basic to the iPills successful journey is a sensor within it that detects the acidity, as measured by the pH value, in the gastrointestinal tract. This varies from the high acidity of the stomach to the less acidic intestines to the more acidic colon. We can program the pill to do a certain mode of action based on this change of pH, van der Schaar said. The medication is packed into a reservoir within the pill and can be released all at once or in bursts as it travels along, Klink said. A tiny pump inside the pill releases the drugs. The pump, made up of a motor and piston driven by a screw rod, is commanded by the microprocessor. A silver oxide battery in the pill lasts about two days, twice the time it usually takes for the pill to travel naturally through the body. The device is being tested at the Philips Research laboratories in Briarcliff Manor, New York, said Jeff Shimizu, a senior scientist at the company. Researchers are using an aquarium as a stand-in for the watery medium of the human body, testing the propagation of the iPills radio waves as they make their way from the tank to the receiving station. Its working out pretty well, Shimizu said. Another company that has developed technology to deliver drugs to specific regions of the gastrointestinal tract is Pharmaceutical Profiles of Ruddington, England. More than 3,500 capsules packed with drugs, an antenna, electronics, and other materials have been ingested by volunteers using the Pharmaceutical Profiles technology, called Enterion, since 2002, said Dr. Mark Egerton, managing director. Cima said that one day, localized electronic drug delivery might play an important role in patient care. You could put a drug to treat colon cancer or irritable bowel syndrome at a select location in the GI tract with great fidelity, he said. It could be the next step in therapy. This is the upcoming technology would be in existence probably in 3-4 years!!

Electronic Pill Shows Its Smarts By Measuring pH Levels In Digestive Tract

ScienceDaily (June 4, 2009) An electronic diagnostic tool called the SmartPill is swallowed by patients in order to take measurements as it travels through the gastrointestinal tract. A new

study by physician-scientists at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center used the device in patients with mild to moderate ulcerative colitis (UC), determining that they have significantly more acidic pH in their colons, compared with the average person a finding that may impact treatment strategy.

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Reference

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"By using the SmartPill to measure the pH throughout the digestive tract, we were able to see how the pH levels can vary in patients with ulcerative colitis. This may help us understand why some drug treatments are more effective than others," says Dr. Brian Bosworth, lead investigator, assistant professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, and a Crohn's and colitis specialist at the Jill Roberts Center for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Mesalamines are the mainstay drug therapy for the induction and maintenance of remission in patients with mild to moderate UC. Their efficacy is dependent on how well the drug is delivered to the active site of the disease. Several mesalamines have a delivery system that is dependent upon a specific pH in order to release. However, since the pH levels in the GI tract can vary, the researchers say, this could impact the proper release and efficacy of the medication. In the study, five patients with mild to moderate ulcerative colitis (UC) and five healthy control patients swallowed the SmartPill. While all study participants reached a pH of 7, the UC patients reached this level more slowly than those without UC. Furthermore, the amount of time the colon maintained a pH greater than 6 or greater than 7 was less in the UC patients. The majority of mesalamines dissolve at a pH greater than or equal to 7, however, there is a more recently approved medication that initiates release of mesalamine at pH greater than or equal to 6. Administered in the physician's office, the SmartPill allows that patient to go about their normal routine during the course of the test. As the SmartPill Capsule passes through the GI tract, it

transmits data including pressure, pH and temperature to a SmartPill Data Receiver worn by the patient. Once the single-use capsule has passed from the body, the patient returns the Data Receiver to the physician who then can download the collected data to a computer, where it can be analyzed. The study was presented June 3 at the Digestive Disease Week (DDW) meeting in Chicago, Ill. The study's co-authors include Drs. Douglas M. Weine and Ellen J. Scherl of NewYorkPresbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, and Michelle Cohen of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, N.Y. About Ulcerative Colitis Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a form of colitis, a disease of the intestine, specifically the large intestine or colon, that includes characteristic ulcers, or open sores, in the colon. Because the inflammation makes the colon empty frequently, symptoms typically include diarrhea (sometimes bloody) and often abdominal pain.