Descrizione del progetto
Una nuova tecnologia per la diagnosi precoce della malattia infiammatoria intestinale e del cancro del colon-retto
Le malattie del tratto gastrointestinale si registrano in una percentuale compresa fra il 15 e il 40 % della popolazione europea. Il solo cancro del colon-retto rappresenta centinaia di migliaia di casi ogni anno ed è la più comune forma di cancro fra gli uomini e la seconda più diffusa tra le donne. L’aumento dello screening è citato come il principale onere per il sistema sanitario. Il progetto AUTOCAPSULE, finanziato dall’UE, intende sviluppare una tecnologia per la diagnosi precoce della malattia infiammatoria intestinale e del cancro del colon-retto, da impiegarsi inoltre per il monitoraggio dell’efficacia del trattamento presso i punti di assistenza. Tale tecnologia è basata su una capsula autonoma che può essere impiantata nel tratto gastrointestinale per diverse settimane, al fine di monitorare un’area specifica, soggetta a manipolazione magnetica attraverso un braccio robotico esterno. La capsula potrà effettuare un rilevamento multimodale, che comprende immaginografia a micro-ultrasuoni, immaginografia a luce bianca e monitoraggio del pH e dell’infiammazione.
Obiettivo
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.
Campo scientifico
- 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
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
Invito a presentare proposte
Vedi altri progetti per questo bandoBando secondario
H2020-EIC-FETPROACT-2019
Meccanismo di finanziamento
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinatore
56126 Pisa
Italia