Pilot Study: Safety and Performance Validation of an Ingestible Medical Device for Collecting Small Intestinal Liquid in Healthy Volunteers

The connection between imbalances in the human gut microbiota, known as dysbiosis, and various diseases has been well established. Current techniques for sampling the small intestine are both invasive for patients and costly for healthcare facilities. Most studies on human gut microbiome are conducted using faecal samples, which do not accurately represent the microbiome in the upper intestinal tract. A pilot clinical investigation, registered as NCT05477069 and sponsored by the Grenoble Alpes University Hospital, is currently underway to evaluate a novel ingestible medical device (MD) designed for collecting small intestinal liquids by Pelican Health. This study is interventional and monocentric, involving 15 healthy volunteers. The primary objective of the study is to establish the safety and the performance of the MD when used on healthy volunteers. Secondary objectives include assessing the device's performance and demonstrating the difference between the retrieved sample from the MD and the corresponding faecal sample. Multi-omics analysis will be performed, including metagenomics, metabolomics, and culturomics. We anticipate that the MD will prove to be safe without any reported adverse effects, and we collected samples suitable for the proposed omics analyses in order to demonstrate the functionality of the MD and the clinical potential of the intestinal content.

A Comprehensive Review of In-Body Biomedical Antennas: Design, Challenges and Applications

In-body biomedical devices (IBBDs) are receiving significant attention in the discovery of solutions to complex medical conditions. Biomedical devices, which can be ingested, injected or implanted in the human body, have made it viable to screen the physiological signs of a patient wirelessly, without regular hospital appointments and routine check-ups, where the antenna is a mandatory element for transferring bio-data from the IBBDs to the external world. However, the design of an in-body antenna is challenging due to the dispersion of the dielectric constant of the tissues and unpredictability of the organ structures of the human body, which can absorb most of the antenna radiation. Therefore, various factors must be considered for an in-body antenna, such as miniaturization, link budget, patient safety, biocompatibility, low power consumption and the ability to work effectively within acceptable medical frequency bands. This paper presents a comprehensive overview of the major facets associated with the design and challenges of in-body antennas. The review comprises surveying the design specifications and implementation methodology, simulation software and testing of in-body biomedical antennas. This work aims to summarize the recent in-body antenna innovations for biomedical applications and indicates the key research challenges.

A highly miniaturized antenna with wider band for biomedical applications

A highly miniaturized planar monopole antenna is presented for biomedical applications. The proposed antenna utilizes polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) with dielectric constant 2.7 and loss tangent 0.0314 with thickness 0.3 mm as substrate and with thickness 0.2 mm as superstrate. A copper foil of 0.03 mm thickness is used for radiating elements. The proposed structure contains a unique structure, made of loop-based structure with three rectangular-shaped stubs are added to tune the operating frequency to 5.8 GHz and to improve the reflection coefficient. The incorporation of stubs achieved the intended frequency of operation, utilization of the loop-based structure for designing the antenna achieved high miniaturization. The proposed antenna is analyzed under various conditions like under skin, muscle, stomach, small intestine,, colon etc., and comparative analysis is presented with the help of reflection coefficient, radiation patterns and specific absorption rate (SAR). SAR is evaluated over a volume of 1 g tissue as per the standards of Federal Communications Commission (FCC). SAR value of the antenna is below 1.6 W/kg for input power 1.9 mW. The simulated analysis showed that the designed antenna is suitable for both implantable and endoscopic applications. Moreover the simulated and measured analysis for reflection coefficient of the proposed antenna showed good agreement.

Time following ingestion does not influence the validity of telemetry pill measurements of core temperature during exercise-heat stress: The journal Temperature toolbox

In studies of human thermoregulation, ingestible temperature pills are being increasingly used as a convenient alternative to more clinically relevant indices of deep-body (core) temperature (e.g., rectal temperature). It remains unclear whether the time between pill ingestion and the measurement period influences the validity of telemetry pills as a surrogate index of core temperature. We therefore assessed the influence of pill ingestion timing on the agreement between rectal temperature (criterion method) and ingestible pill temperature during exercise-heat stress. To achieve this, nine young men (21-31 years) completed two trials involving 15-min rest, 90-min exercise at an average metabolic heat production of 200 W/m² (~40% peak oxygen consumption), and 45-min recovery. Core temperature was measured throughout using rectal temperature and four telemetric temperature pills (VitalSense®) ingested 12, 6, 3 and 1 h(s) prior to the start of each trial. Data from the two trials were combined and averaged over the final 10-min of rest, exercise, and recovery for analysis. Our primary finding was that the mean squared difference between rectal temperature and each pill did not differ significantly across ingestion times during rest, exercise or recovery (p = 0.056), with those errors ranging from 0.1-0.2°C, 0.2-0.2°C, 0.1-0.2°C, and 0.1-0.2°C for the pills ingested 12, 6, 3, and 1 h(s) before data collection, respectively. While there is a need for larger confirmatory studies, our findings indicate that pill ingestion timing does not significantly influence the validity of telemetry pill temperature as an index of core temperature.