imagine if a colonoscopy had nothing to do with your butt
purdue university has developed an alternative to invasive tests with a bacteria-finding capsule that can be swallowed.
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let's be real. colonoscopies are no fun. stock/getty
imagine that instead of undergoing a colonoscopy, you can simply swallow a pill-like device that will do all the work. a new invention by researchers means that this could become reality.
a purdue university team has designed a battery-less 3d-printed capsule which can collect microbiome samples throughout the entire nine-metres of the gastrointestinal tract. as the tiny cylindrical device (which is made of acrylic and measures nine millimeters by 15 millimeters) moves through the body, the biodegradable coating dissolves, allowing the hydrogel (shown to absorb 150 to 300 times its weight) to take in fluids at the targeted area.
after the sample’s been collected, a flexible silicon membrane seals the capsule, which is retrieved through excretion. the resulting collected bacteria samples are then cultured by removing the hydrogel for analysis.
“this approach is providing new opportunities to study what type of bacteria are present in the gut,” rahim rahimi, one of the study’s authors and purdue university assistant professor of materials engineering, told sciencedaily. “it would help us figure out how to manipulate these bacteria to combat disease.”
compared to conventional methods such as endoscopies or colonoscopies — which are invasive, can cause discomfort and aren’t able to reach the entire gi tract — capsule-based devices can improve patient comfort and be administered outside a clinical setting. while there are existing capsules equipped with cameras that address some of these limitations, they can’t collect and store samples.
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gut bacteria can tell us a lot about our health and play an important role in understanding various diseases. the study’s authors note a number of studies that have found correlations between gut health and diseases including diabetes, obesity and metabolic syndrome (conditions that can increase risk of heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes), which affect approximately 30 million people in the united states.
rahimi says that not only can this innovation help more patients undergo procedures like colonoscopies, the capsule is also cheaper, estimating the cost to be about a dollar compared to the almost $200 it costs for a conventional colonoscopy.
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