Microchip Could Replace Pills

webhat writes "BBC News reports in an article that a microchip implanted in your body may be the end of swallowing pills. A microchip of a centimeter long was created with a sandwich coating of a drug (heparin) and a slow biodegrading polymer. As the polymer layer degrades the drug is released into the system."

SYSTEM_FAILURE

[hendot]

The only problem would be that if it stuffed up, you could get an instant overdose :(

Glossing Over....

[Vengie]

Ugh. The article is incredibly terse and glosses right over internal trauma. Sure, if all is peachy-perfect, but what happens when you're in an accident and your little chip gets smashed in the process, instantly releasing the entire contained dosages into your bloodstream. Simply fabulous. You'd think people would have learned from silicon, and even from the occasional problems with the in-your-arm-time-release-birth-control products. Is anyone really willing to make these tradeoffs? [Sure, go ahead, argue that this could be useful for non-trivial drugs for which massive dosages wouldn't matter.....if there is a drug you /should/ be taking every day, there should also be a lifestyle change that should reflect that....]

disclaimer: both my parents are pharmacists. i read too much of their continuing ed crud.

Microchip?

[Eric Ass Raymond]

It is then covered with different types of polymer which slowly biodegrade releasing each dose at a different time.

Where is the microchip? This sounds just like a typical retarded-release pill.

Re:Pill, Microchip, what's the diff?

[Anonymous Coward]

A microchip could identify exactly which dose/drug you're on. Picture a current case where someone has say, a slow release antipsychotic implanted in the fat in their arm. Say that drug reacts badly with certain medication.

Now, our antipsychotic friend is put in hospital after a severe car accident and needs quick treatment, but is given the drug that interacts badly with their medication. *bing* they die.

Or, with the microchip in there, a quick scan over their body can show JUST which antipsychotic they're on, and let docs make a more informed choice on how to save the patient's life.

Of course, if an employer scans you for undesirable medication that they don't like (antipsychotics, birth control pills, antidepressants, mood stabilisers) that opens another can of worms.

But thats how I see them possibly being different

Re:Microchip, but not computer controlled release.

[webhat]

When I read microchip, I thought computer controlled release too, but as it is actually a small wafer build up of layers of polymer and whatever drug, in a similar way to what you might call a `real' microchip. I think you can use it.
I very much doubt your potato chips are created in that way.

HIV in Africa

[panurge]

It isn't a "microchip" but I wonder if the grooves are fabricated using the same kind of technology.

This could be extremely useful in treating AIDS and tuberculosis in the 3rd world. Apart from the problems of many 3rd world people in ensuring that drugs are taken continuously, there is the risk that they will sell drugs or have them stolen by other sufferers who are not being treated. I do not know how dosage would stack up against feasibility, but the principle looks sound. There's also the possibility of slowly releasing chemotherapy right into tumors.

Obviously any new technology is going to have risks, but if people are going to die of something without treatment, and existing means of delivery are unreliable or worse, surely this has to be worth pursuing.

Re:Pill, Microchip, what's the diff?

[Davak]

As a doc, I say this would be wonderful.

Taking multiple pills a day can really decrease one's quality of life. Taking medicines with different schedules can be impossible for even the smartest of patients.

Medicine has advanced that we can really improve quality of life (and usually length of life) for the majority of diseases...

However one of the biggest problems we face is getting the patient to actually take his/her medications!

I can see this plan taking the following course:
1. Doc visit and prescription of an oral medication(s)
2. Patient returns for follow-up, adjustment of dosing, and screening for side effects
3. Repeat step 2 until patient is at steady state
4. Schedule implant
5. Continue to adjust doses as needed.

Of course, the next logical steps are chips that release medicines based on the detection of biological markers. If it detects the pro-BNP level is elevated... it releases some diuretics. If it detects the serum glucose is too high, it releases some insulin.

I know how much medicine has changed in just my years of practice... this is just one more advance that we will one day wonder how we lived without.

Davak

what about the cost?

[schmack]

Let's be real -- the artical talks about HIV treatments and the like, but I can imagine this chip being a _lot_ more expensive than standard gel caps or pressed pills. I don't see African countries shelling out for this, when even standard medication is a blue sky concept for them (about the only thing they have plenty of).

Medicine is damn expensive, and maybe I'm overly cynical, but I can't see the big pharmaceutical companies getting all altruistic on us any time in the foreseeable future.

Re:Glossing Over....

[gordlea]

If you're in an accident where the impact was hard enough to shatter a tiny microchip inside your body (say: your parachute didn't open), I'd say you've got bigger problems.

Re:what about the cost?

[TomV]

Two points - firstly, although you make a good point about the relative costs of the new 'chip' versus standard pills, it's not a comparison between the price of one chip and one pill but rather between the price of 1 chip and 140 pills, which should at least narrow the gap somewhat. Though probably not all the way.

Secondly, the drug used in the tests was Heparin, an anticoagulant. I don't know about Heparin, but I know that Warfarin, another anticoagulant, is something my Mum's had to take twice a day every day since she had a heart attack 5 years ago, and something that my friend who just had a heart valve replaced will have to take every single day for the rest of her life (she's only 30, so that's an awful lot of tablets to remember). For both these people at least, reducing the memory requirement from 2-pills-a-day to one-chip-per-7-months would make a huge difference to the disruption their coronary health needs impose on their lives.

I suspect as usual we'll see the neato technology being used in the 'west' for the treatment of the diseases of affluence, while we continue to make those in the developing world slum it with lowest common denominator medicines for the diseases of poverty. While all the while ignoring Malaria completely, of course.

tV

Miracle Pills!

[Dun Malg]

You know, I'm getting a little tired of the ever-increasing "miracle pill" culture that has taken over much of modern medicine. We just keep getting more and more pills, all of them focused on treating narrower groups of symptoms, but rarely addressing the actual problem. For example: in college I was diagnosed as being severely depressed. About all they had then was Lithium-- which is more of a mood poisoner than a mood stabilizer-- and that helped, even if it did kind of zombify me. I eventually felt better and stopped taking the nasty crap and had no serious problems. That is, not until 10 years later when I became depressed again. This time they put me on Zoloft. It worked more subtly than Lithium, but the side effects were almost as bad. I tried that crap for a while, but it didn't feel like it was really solving the problem. SO I kept my eyes open for other treatment paths. I finally went to see a Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner who examined me for five minutes and solved the problem. He told me to quit taking the Zoloft, 'cause I wasn't depressed, I was just tired. As it turns out I have a narrowed nasal cavity that causes sleep apnea and I'd never had a good night's sleep in my life. It explained everything. After some minor nasal surgery I sleep fine and I'm no longer "depressed". It just pisses me off that in 20-odd years of going to doctors for depression, they all reached straight for their Rx pad and didn't notice that I couldn't breathe through my nose!

Mind you, I'm not one of those nuts who thinks all pills are bad. They have their applications. I'm just sick of doctors looking at every problem as something to be medicated. It's understandable, what with the big PharmaCorps out there pushing their particular products, but it leads to the classic single-solution problem: when all you have is a hammer, all problems start to look like nails.