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Digital opioids help doctors track prescription painkiller use

avcpl

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Joined
Feb 4, 2009
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1,147
The pills are equipped with sensors powered by stomach acid

https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/20...ption-pain-killers-addiction-overdose-science

The latest weapon in the fight against opioid addiction may be sensors in prescription opioids that alert physicians whenever their patients pop a pill. These digital pills aren’t on the market yet, but a small test run shows that they can help doctors monitor how patients use prescription painkillers at home.

SENSORS ALERT PHYSICIANS WHENEVER THEIR PATIENTS POP A PILL
By prescribing opioids equipped with radio transmitters to patients treated for broken bones, researchers tracked patients’ pill use in real time. The research team, led by Peter Chai at Harvard Medical School’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, found that most of the patients started spacing out their doses after a few days, and stopped before their pills ran out, according to the study published in the journal Anesthesia and Analgesia. (The participants turned their remaining pills in to their docs).

Prescribing too many pills might lead patients to take more than they need, the study says — or leave them with extra pills to be sold. So giving researchers a way to track how many pills patients actually use could help doctors write better opioid prescriptions that leave fewer pills left over. Digital pills could also help doctors spot — and stop — dangerous drug use early. This level of detail is a first: typically, doctors have no way to monitor opioid use once a patient goes home with a bottle of pills. “We’re placing the onus of one of the most dangerous medicines we have into the hands of patients,” says Chai, a physician and medical toxicologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

“ONE OF THE MOST DANGEROUS MEDICINES WE HAVE.”
Chai wanted to know if there was a way to spot problematic drug use as the behavior emerges. If someone suddenly starts taking their prescribed painkillers more frequently, for example, it could mean they’re suffering from a painful complication. Or it could mean they’re growing tolerant to the drug, and could begin misusing it. “Those are two different conversations,” Chai says — and they’re ones that are only possible if a doctor can track their patients’ pill use.

That’s where the digital pills come in. Made by a Florida-based company called eTectRx, they’re gel capsules that contain both the drug and a radio transmitter “about the size of a sesame seed,” Chai says. (They’re a little different from the digital versions of antipsychotic Abilify, which the Food and Drug Administration just approved.)

Once the pill hits the patient’s stomach, the gel cap dissolves — releasing both the oxycodone tablet and the transmitter. The transmitter powers up when it touches stomach acid, and signals to an iPod-sized device via a patch stuck to the patient’s belly. This device then beams a message to a database in the cloud, telling the doctor that the patient has swallowed a pill. (Patients need to put on the device when they take the pill in order for it to register.) Eventually, the patient poops out the tiny transmitter. Chai says he does not want the transmitters back.

EVENTUALLY, THE PATIENT POOPS OUT THE TINY TRANSMITTER
The team sent 15 patients who’d been treated for broken bones home with 21 of these pills, along with instructions to take them for a week as needed. The researchers found that most patients started tapering their opioid doses on their own, and stopped after about four days — before the full week was up. None took all 21 pills, and most took many fewer — which means doctors might be sending people with fractures home with too many painkillers that could then be sold or misused.

The researchers also spotted an alarming trend: people were taking painkillers right before going to sleep to pre-empt waking up with pain. But Chai says this could lead to dangerous drops in breathing for some people — and it’s a practice they might not have identified without the digital pills.

It’s still early, but Chai says that the next round of studies will use an even more sophisticated version of these digital pill detectors. “We’re playing with the 1990s iPod. We have the iPhone X now,” Chai says. Of course, the patients will still actually have to wear the device — when they forgot, their doctors were left just as in the dark as before.
 
LOL shades of THX 1138.

p3032_p_v8_aa.jpg


I am so glad to be old and not long for this world, and am sad for the generations that will follow me.
 
What a great movie!

Yes this shit just keeps getting scarier and scarier. I can’t imagine how something like this is viable in terms of cost to consumer, but given how dysfunctional the pharmaceutical industry is and American consumers are when it comes to just laying costs off on insurance providers.

Just very frustrating. Brave new world indeed. I’m looking forward to the attempts of alter our genetic profile to prevent people from getting high off opioids... :\
 
So this requires the patient to wear “an Ipod sized device” stuck to them at all times. All you’d have to do is not keep the transmitter on you. This is such a ridiculous idea, seems incredibly expensive and invasive
 
sounds like a cool idea, but the data its collecting is being used as an excuse to lower scripts
 
Yeah let me know what patient approves of tracking devices being attached to them.

Liberals, "conservatives", authoritarian, libertarian, young, old, I guarantee you NO ONE will want to use one of these.
 
Yeah let me know what patient approves of tracking devices being attached to them.

Liberals, "conservatives", authoritarian, libertarian, young, old, I guarantee you NO ONE will want to use one of these.



I don't want to have to take a piss-test either, but it's not like pain management gives me a choice...
 
I wonder what would happen if the patient preferred to snort the medicine. Could they just dump out the contents, locate the sensor, swallow it and then snort the medicine? I suspect someone could get pretty good at it in short order if they did it 2-4x a day. Just thinking outside the box here.
 
If they're anything like the ankle bracelets some people have to wear while on house arrest, it will alert if taken off, or potentially even tampered with a bit too much. I could be wrong, but if you could just stuff the things in a drawer, I doubt a doc would even bother with this kind of thing.
 
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