New Pill PRIM Makes Monitoring Inflammatory Bowel Disease Easy

A new swallowable device called PRIM (Pill for ROS-responsive Inflammation Monitoring) could someday make tracking inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)—a chronic condition that causes inflammation in the digestive tract—as simple as checking the color of your stool. Researchers from Mass General Brigham and the University of Toronto designed and tested the device in preclinical models. In their proof-of-concept study, the pill correctly detected gut inflammation about 78% of the time. The researchers estimate the device would cost less than 50 cents to make, making it a promising option for widespread, regular at-home use. Their findings are published in Device.

Currently, monitoring gut inflammation often requires unpleasant or expensive procedures like colonoscopies or sending stool samples to a lab—steps that can be difficult or cumbersome for many patients to do regularly.

Researchers designed the PRIM pill as a small capsule coated with a special polymer that reacts to inflammation. When levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS)—a chemical marker of inflammation—are elevated in the gut, the polymer breaks down and releases a blue dye. This visible signal can then be detected in the stool, signaling intestinal inflammation. The device was tested both in laboratory settings and in a rat model of colitis, using 36 capsules across healthy and inflamed conditions to evaluate its performance.

In rats with colitis, the miniaturized PRIM device successfully identified intestinal inflammation with 78% sensitivity and 72% specificity. The blue dye it released was clearly visible in the animals’ stool, while the device remained unopened and inactive in healthy rats, confirming its stability under non-inflammatory conditions.

The research team is now working to adapt the PRIM pill for human use. This includes testing it in larger animal models and fine-tuning its sensitivity to detect even mild-to-moderate inflammation. The device has an estimated production cost of just $0.38 per unit.

According to the source: Technology Networks.