Ingestible Capsule for Vital Sign Monitoring

Hostile combat environments with high casualty rates leave forward medical providers isolated and over-tasked with limited capacity for resupply. To address these limitations, innovative medical technologies that provide continuous assessment of the physiological status of injured military servicemen are in high demand. Specifically, the ability for real-time, vital sign monitoring and reporting supported by machine learning predictive algorithms will be essential for near instantaneous medical status alerting in mass casualty scenarios requiring Prolonged Field Care (24-72 hours) before medical evacuation can occur. Accurate, real-time vital signs parameters are conventionally achieved via external probes, which are physically and logistically obtrusive and can become partially or fully-detached, especially in field care.. Presently, there are no technologies that routinely provide autonomous, real-time vital sign measurement from within the body either through implantation or ingestion. To address these challenges, Nanohmics Inc., working in collaboration with Professor Nanshu Lu of the University of Texas at Austin, Mr. Ulf Borg (Director of Clinical Science of the Medtronic Minimally Invasive Therapies Group), Dr. Eric Snider (Biomedical Engineer at the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research (San Antonio, TX)), and Capstan Technologies, a compact microfluidics and biocompatibility mechanical engineer firm, proposes to continue advanced development of its compact, nano-sensing-enabled microrobotic ingestible capsule platform (VitalScopeTM) that provides in situ measurement of vital signs. The VitalScope capsule technology will be the first ingestible capsule capable of ECG and arterial pressure waveform monitoring that enables determination of real-time heart rate, blood pressure, and respiratory rate. Direct arterial pressure monitoring continues to be one of the most important techniques in managing critical patients in the hospital, because it is a direct representation of the patient’s cardiac cycle and hemodynamic status. The major barrier to transitioning this powerful monitoring method to the field is the conventionally invasive nature of the method. Nanohmics’ integration of arterial pressure waveform monitoring into a non-invasive swallowable capsule will provide a major break-through in the monitoring of patients in the battlefield, and in civilian environments. Data will be transmitted in real-time via secure wireless protocol, with Machine Learning/AI algorithms to assist clinical decision making. Patient status such as shock and other critical states can be recognized by autocorrelation of the relevant vital signs in the AI software. The Machine Learning algorithm can be trained to recognize when a patient is beginning to deteriorate, before a full-fledged manifestation of critical signs is apparent, in order to alert timely intervention and treatment.