AST 'CHAMPIONS' Edition December 2017 Digital-Dec2 | Page 74

Volume 18
take more than they need, the study says — or
leave them with extra pills to be sold.
So, giving researchers a way to track how many
pills patients actually use could help doctors
write better opioid prescriptions that leave fewer
pills left over.
December 2017 Edition
If someone suddenly starts taking their prescribed
painkillers more frequently, for example, it could
mean they’re suffering from a painful complica-
tion.
Or it could mean they’re growing tolerant to the
drug, and could begin misusing it.
Digital pills could also help doctors spot — and
stop — dangerous drug use early. This level of
detail is a first: typically, doctors have no way to
monitor opioid use once a patient goes home
with a bottle of pills.
“We’re placing the onus of one of the most dan-
gerous medicines we have into the hands of pa-
tients,” says Chai, a physician and medical toxi-
cologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Dr. Peter Chai, Harvard Medical School’s Brigham and Wom-
en’s Hospital
“Those are two different conversations,” Chai
says — and they’re ones that are only possible if
a doctor can track their patients’ pill use.
That’s where the digital pills come in.
Made by a Florida-based company called eTec-
tRx, they’re gel capsules that contain both the
drug and a radio transmitter “about the size of a
sesame seed,” Chai says.
Figure 1. An ingestible radiofrequency sensor is incorpo-
rated into a gelatin capsule (A), which is compounded with
the desired medication (B) to create a digital pill (C). Once
the digital pill is ingested (1), it is activated and transmits a
radiofrequency signal to a hip worn device (2) that collects
and transmits ingestion data to a cloud-based server driving
an interface (3) that displays ingestion data to clinicians and
patients. (Study by Dr. Peter Chai published in the Journal of
Medical Internet Research on January 13, 2017, Digital Pills
to Measure Opioid Ingestion Patterns in Emergency Depart-
ment Patients with Acute Fracture Pain: A Pilot Study**)
“ONE OF THE MOST DANGEROUS
MEDICINES WE HAVE.”
Chai wanted to know if there was a way to spot
problematic drug use as the behavior emerges.
(They’re a little different from the digital versions
of antipsychotic Abilify, which the Food and Drug
Administration just approved.)
Once the pill hits the patient’s stomach, the gel
cap dissolves — releasing both the oxycodone
tablet and the transmitter.
The transmitter powers up when it touches stom-
ach acid, and signals to an iPod-sized device via
a patch stuck to the patient’s belly.
This device then beams a message to a data-
base in the cloud, telling the doctor that the pa-
tient has swallowed a pill. (Patients need to put
on the device when they take the pill in order for
it to register.)
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