Descripción del proyecto
Nueva tecnología para el diagnóstico precoz de la enfermedad inflamatoria intestinal y el cáncer intestinal
Aproximadamente el 15-40 % de la población europea presenta algún tipo de trastorno del tubo digestivo (TD). Cada año se dan cientos de miles de casos de cáncer colorrectal, el tipo de cáncer más habitual en hombres y el segundo más habitual en mujeres, y el aumento de las pruebas de detección a menudo se cita como la principal carga para el sistema de atención sanitaria. El proyecto financiado con fondos europeos AUTOCAPSULE tiene por objeto desarrollar una tecnología para el diagnóstico precoz de la enfermedad inflamatoria intestinal y el cáncer intestinal, así como evaluar la eficacia del tratamiento en el punto de atención. La tecnología se basa en una cápsula autónoma que puede implantarse en el tubo digestivo durante varias semanas para supervisar un área específica bajo el control magnético de un brazo robótico externo. La cápsula tendrá funciones de detección multimodal, incluida la imagenología microecográfica, imagenología con luz blanca y supervisión del pH y la inflamación.
Objetivo
AUTOCAPSULE aims at demonstrating the viability of a technology for early diagnosis of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) and bowel cancer and for monitoring of treatment effectiveness at primary or secondary point of care. The technology vision is based on an untethered autonomous capsule that is both implantable in the gastro-intestinal (GI) tract for several weeks in order to monitor a specific area, and that can explore the GI tract for endoscopy in a point of care, through magnetic manipulation with an external robotic arm and limited expertise of the operator . The capsule is capable of multimodal sensing, including micro ultrasound imaging, white light imaging, ph monitoring and inflammation monitoring.
The GI system is highly complex, subject to frequent external stimulus through eating and digestion, and carries an extremely high burden of disease: 15 – 40% of the European population report functional GI conditions. However, the range of conditions encompassed is too diverse a target for immediate action and we will therefore focus on inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and colorectal cancer. Even for those diseases alone, the affected European populations are large, with colorectal cancer being the most common cancer in men (30% of all new cancers) and second most common in women (25% of all new cancers) with a total of about 350,000 cases in the EU in 2012. Moreover, the burden on healthcare systems is rising worldwide, with increased screening cited as the primary reason.
In the course of the AUTOCAPSULE project two parallel tracks will be followed to demonstrate the technology vision, each focusing on a subset of the vision capsule features. One focuses on the development and demonstration of an untethered autonomous robotic capsule, capable of micro ultrasound imaging and white light imaging. The other focuses on the development and demonstration of an implantable capsule, capable of operating with sub-mW wireless power supply and of being parked in the GI tract for several weeks. AUTOCAPSULE will demonstrate capsules with partial complementary implementations of the technology vision and will show a path towards the fabrication and industrial development of the full vision capsule.
Ámbito científico
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicinegastroenterologyinflammatory bowel disease
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringroboticsautonomous robots
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicineoncologycolorectal cancer
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesacousticsultrasound
Palabras clave
Programa(s)
Convocatoria de propuestas
Consulte otros proyectos de esta convocatoriaConvocatoria de subcontratación
H2020-EIC-FETPROACT-2019
Régimen de financiación
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinador
56126 Pisa
Italia