This ‘ping pong’ pill swells up in your stomach to detect cancer

The thought of taking a pill the size of a ping pong ball is hard to swallow — but it might help detect cancer early.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineers have created a new shape-shifting medical innovation to better monitor for cancer, ulcers and other gastrointestinal illnesses.

This ingestible hydrogel device can fit down a human gullet, but once inside the taker’s tummy, it swells into a soft, squishy sphere that resembles a typical table-tennis ball.

Once expanded, the pill’s sensor does internal research on GI health by tracking the stomach’s temperature. Its size allows it to stay in the body for up to 30 days.

“The dream is to have a Jell-O-like smart pill, that — once swallowed — stays in the stomach and monitors the patient’s health for a long time, such as a month,” says study co-author Xuanhe Zhao, associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, in a statement.

Scientists were inspired by the ability of pufferfish and blowfish to balloon as a defense tactic.

MIT’s resulting design is more pliable and biocompatible than existing ingestible sensors, which can only remain in the stomach for a few days and are made from hard plastics or metals that could damage the GI tract.

The strong inner layer is filled with the same polymers found in diapers, which are adept at soaking up liquids.

To pass the pill, patients must drink a “biocompatible salt solution,” according to a study published in Nature Communications.

The solution triggers immediate deflation into a “floppy membrane,” and the membrane “quickly” flushes out of the body, according to Science Daily. The research was supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

So far, the pill has only been tested on pigs, but Zhao has high hopes for its potential cancer-fighting abilities — and maybe even a weight-loss bonus — in humans.

“With our design, you wouldn’t need to go through a painful process to implant a rigid balloon,” Zhao says. “Maybe you can take a few of these pills instead, to help fill out your stomach, and lose weight.”

https://nypost.com/2019/02/01/this-ping-pong-pill-swells-up-in-your-stomach-to-detect-cancer/