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US-20260123848-A1 - MAGNETO-MECHANICAL RESONATORS WITH REDUCED MUTUAL ATTRACTION

US20260123848A1US 20260123848 A1US20260123848 A1US 20260123848A1US-20260123848-A1

Abstract

A system for monitoring and/or diagnosing the transit through the gastro-intestinal tract of a mammal, such as a human is described. The system comprises a micromechanical resonator (MMR) device and a tracking system. The sensing device comprises a casing and a first magnetic object with a permanent magnetic moment, wherein the first magnetic object is coupled to the casing in such a way, that it is configured for oscillating around an equilibrium position when excited by a magnetic or an electromagnetic excitation field and wherein the tracking system comprises at least one coil for generating the magnetic or electromagnetic excitation field configured for detecting the magnetic response field generated by the sensing device.

Inventors

  • Bernhard Gleich
  • Juergen Erwin Rahmer
  • Ingo Schmale

Assignees

  • KONINKLIJKE PHILIPS N.V.

Dates

Publication Date
20260507
Application Date
20231010
Priority Date
20221222

Claims (16)

  1. 1 . A system for monitoring and/or diagnosing the transit through the gastro-intestinal tract of a mammal, such as a human, comprising sensing device and a sensing system, wherein the sensing device comprises a casing; and a first magnetic object with a permanent magnetic moment, wherein the first magnetic object is coupled to the casing in such a way, that it is configured for oscillating around an equilibrium position when excited by a magnetic or an electromagnetic excitation field; and wherein the sensing device comprises a second magnetic object configured for providing a restoring force to the first magnetic object wherein a distance from a center of the first magnetic object to an outer surface of the casing is at least equal to a diameter of the first magnetic object, the said distance equals at least twice of the diameter of the first magnetic object, and wherein the tracking system comprises at least one coil for generating the magnetic or electromagnetic excitation field configured for detecting the magnetic response field generated by the sensing device and a controller for controlling the coil system configured for determining whether the presence of a sensing device in a target detection space.
  2. 2 . A sensing device for monitoring and/or diagnosing the transit through the gastro-intestinal tract of a mammal, such as a human comprising: a casing; a first magnetic object with a permanent magnetic moment, wherein the first magnetic object is coupled to the casing in such a way, that it is configured for oscillating around an equilibrium position when excited by a magnetic or an electromagnetic excitation field; and wherein the sensing device comprises a second magnetic object configured for providing a restoring force to the first magnetic object and wherein a distance from a center of the first magnetic object to an outer surface of the casing is at least equal to a diameter of the first magnetic object.
  3. 3 . The sensing device of claim 2 , wherein the distance from the center of the magnetic object to the outer surface of the casing is at least equal to twice, preferably three times of that of the diameter of the magnetic object
  4. 4 . The sensing device of claim 2 wherein a filling material is provided over an inner side of the casing, wherein the filling material comprises at least one of: epoxy resin, and/or polymer material group, and/or a material from an acryloyl group.
  5. 5 . The sensing device of claim 2 wherein the casing further comprises a cage defining an outer shape of the sensor.
  6. 6 . The sensing device of claim 2 wherein the sensing device is arranged to have a density from 945 to 1155 kg/m 3 , and preferably from 1000 to 1050 kg/m 3 to allow the sensor to pass through the gastric tract.
  7. 7 . The sensing device of claim 5 wherein an outer surface of the cage is provided with a gastro-intestinal resistance coating.
  8. 8 . The sensing device of claim 2 , wherein at least the first magnetic object is configured to be attached to the casing via a filament, and the second magnetic object is either configured to be fixed to a casing by a fixing material or attached to the casing via a second filament.
  9. 9 . The sensing device of claim 8 , wherein the ratio of the diameter of filament to the diameter of magnetic object may be a constant, wherein the constant be in the range from 1:1 to 1:1000, and more preferably be from 1:100 to 1:1000.
  10. 10 . The sensing device of claim 8 , wherein the filament and/or fixing material is of polymer material group, preferably of class polyoxides.
  11. 11 . The sensing device of claim 2 , wherein a distance between the first magnetic object and the second magnetic object is less than 10%, and preferably less than 2% of a diameter of the first magnetic object.
  12. 12 . (canceled)
  13. 13 . (canceled)
  14. 14 . A method of monitoring the transit through the gastro-intestinal tract of a mammal, such as a human, the method comprising administering the sensing devices of claim 1 for oral consumption by a subject.
  15. 15 . A computer program comprising instructions which, when the program is executed by a computer, cause the computer to carry out the method of claim 12 .
  16. 16 . A Computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions which, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to carry out the method of claim 12 .

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION The invention relates to gastric emptying and device/method for gastric emptying analysis, as well as manufacturing method of such devices. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Gastric emptying is the process by which the contents of the stomach are moved into the duodenum. This is accomplished by three mechanisms: (1) peristaltic waves, (2) systolic contractions of the antrum, and (3) reduction in size of the stomach. To monitor this process, different processes are used. One of the most widely used method is by using radioactive pills as tracers for monitoring the movement of food. The patient will eat a light meal with radioactive pills (tracers), will lie down on an X-ray table, and the radiologist will make several scans to understand how tracers move in the patient. The tracer will show how food travels through the stomach. This approach has some substantial disadvantages, such as absorbed dose by the X-ray machine and the tracers. Furthermore, the tracers are toxic for the patient and are difficult to handle. Other similar methods also have substantial disadvantages. Barium swallow has the same disadvantages as the radioactive pills. Gastric emptying breath test is imprecise, and the patient will receive substantial dose in the X-ray study. Another known method is to use a smart pill, also known as a wireless motility capsule. The patient will swallow a small electronic device (also known as smart pill, SmartPill by Medtronic, or just SmartPill) and will attach a receiver on the waist. The smart pill will travel through the gastrointestinal system and collect data sent to the receiver. The receiver will then be returned to the physician for reading-out of the data. This method is very uncomfortable to use as the smart pill is quite large, and this might cause gastrointestinal (GI) tract obstruction. Generally, retention of the smart pill is a challenge and additional studies such as esophagogastroduodenoscopy need to be performed, which will cause further discomfort to the patient and will complicate the clinical workflow. Also, the precision of these devices needs to be improved, as in many cases additional studies are ordered to alleviate the problem of insufficient precision. Hence, it is the object of the present application to solve these challenges with a goal to develop a new system and sensor to alleviate the problems of the known methods. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The invention is defined by the independent claims. Dependent claims represent beneficial embodiments. The invention relates to monitoring and/or diagnostic of gastric transit processes in mammals, in particular human beings. Currently, there is no low-cost, easy to handle, absent of harmful side effects for human health (e.g., due to ionizing radiation used in conventional procedures) application for gastrointestinal studies. The present invention aims to introduce a solution tackling at least one, and preferably all, of the mentioned challenges. Very small mechanical devices have been developed, for instance, in the form of microrobots or microdevices, that can be advantageously utilized in applications that introduce a strict size constraint, for instance, in medical applications within the human body. Such microdevices are useful in the form of localization or sensor devices. A very advantageous kind of such microdevices are magneto-mechanical resonator (MMR) devices. A localization or sensing of such magneto-mechanical resonator devices relies on a spatially resolved detection of response signals (e.g., an induced magnetic field) of the magneto-mechanical resonator device which is produced in response to an excitation signal (e.g., an externally applied magnetic field). Information on a location of the magneto-mechanical resonator device is typically obtained by using an array of receiving coils with a known spatial sensitivity profile. The following application describe the general principles of the sensing devices and are incorporated here by reference in its entirety as if fully set forth herein: U.S. patent application publication 2020/0397510. The inventors of the invention have realized that ssensing devices, such as those described in U.S. patent application 2020/0397510, can be adapted to be used in the gastrointestinal studies and have developed a completely new approach to monitoring and/or diagnostic of gastric emptying, gastric transit processes and generally detection of GI malfunctions in the human body. Since ssensing devices are smaller than the smart pill devices, such as the SmartPill from Medtronic, they have the potential of alleviating and/or solving the challenges and problems described previously. Generally, there were no attempts yet to adapt the ssensing devices towards the gastric emptying applications. The inventors of the present invention have developed a completely new approach for monitoring and/or diagnosis of gastric transit processes in mammals based on MMR's. The described approa