The contraceptive implant with a remote control: System can dispense birth control drugs for 16 YEARS
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A new birth control drug delivery system can be remotely turned on or off - and can last 16 years.
The unnamed device is designed to be implanted under the skin of the buttocks, upper arm, or abdomen.
It dispenses 30 micrograms a day of levonorgestrel, a hormone already used in several kinds of contraceptives.
How it works: The device dispenses 30 micrograms a day of levonorgestrel, a hormone already used in several kinds of contraceptives. To conceive, women turn off the implant with a remote control. Another click of the remote restarts it.
HOW IT WORKS
The device measures 20 x 20 x 7 millimeters, and it is designed to be implanted under the skin of the buttocks, upper arm, or abdomen.
It dispenses 30 micrograms a day of levonorgestrel, a hormone already used in several kinds of contraceptives.
To conceive, women turn off the implant with a remote control.
Another click of the remote restarts it.
Passing an electric current through the seal from an internal battery melts it temporarily, allowing a small dose of the hormone to diffuse out each day
Sixteen years' worth of the hormone fits in tiny reservoirs on a microchip 1.5 centimeters wide inside the device.
According to MIT Technology Review, the firm behind it, MicroCHIPS of Lexington, Massachusetts, the device will begin pre-clinical testing next year in the U.S.
The goal is to have it on the market by 2018,' they say.
The device measures 20 x 20 x 7 millimeters, and it is designed to be implanted under the skin of the buttocks, upper arm, or abdomen.
It dispenses 30 micrograms a day of levonorgestrel, a hormone already used in several kinds of contraceptives.
'Precise, long- term drug delivery can be achieved by using individual microreservoirs to store and hermetically protect the drug, microchip activation to release the drug, and telemetry to both control and communicate release,' the firm says.
'This creates the opportunity for more accurate dosing, reduced cost-of-care, improved patient compliance and, ultimately, improved patient outcomes.'
Sixteen years' worth of the hormone fits in tiny reservoirs on a microchip 1.5 centimeters wide inside the device.
The firm has already tested the radical drug delivery system on patients with osteoporosis.
It relies on titanium and platinum seal on the reservoirs containing the drug.
Passing an electric current through the seal from an internal battery melts it temporarily, allowing a small dose of the hormone to diffuse out each day.
The implant could mean the end of daily injections or tablets
'The idea of using a thin membrane like an electric fuse was the most challenging and the most creative problem we had to solve," MicroCHIPS president Robert Farra told MIT.
The microchip device is implanted and explanted using local anesthetic.
Patient surveys from the osteoporosis study found that the microchip device was well-tolerated, and patients indicated that they would repeat the implant procedure.
'Each procedure lasted less than 30 minutes,' said treating surgeon Pia Georg Jensen, MD.
'The patients were able to walk out of the facility and go home unescorted.'
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