Call it a Holter monitor for the gut. Researchers have developed a wearable external sensor that tracks electrical activity in the gastrointestinal tract. The device, which measures gastric myoelectric activity, links to a smartphone app to collect data, and could be used to monitor GI processes such as delayed gastric emptying, even during sleep.
“This work opens the door [to] accurately monitoring the dynamic activity of the GI system,” said Todd Coleman, PhD, a bioengineer at the University of California, San Diego, who helped design the device, in a statement. “Until now, it was quite challenging to accurately measure the electrical patterns of stomach activity in a continuous manner, outside of a clinical setting. From now on, we will be able to observe patterns and analyze them in both healthy and unwell people as they go about their daily lives.”
The gold standard for monitoring biomechanical activity in the GI tract is manometry. Although it is accurate, manometry is considered invasive because it involves the threading of sensors into the body.
The device consists of a 3-D–printed, battery-powered transceiver with 10 electrodes (left). Because the electrical activity in the gut is roughly one-tenth that of the heart, the researchers had to develop a computer algorithm to ignore background noise and properly analyze the signals—a problem that has complicated previous efforts at electrogastrography (EGG).
In a new study, published in March in Scientific Reports, the UC San Diego group reported their findings with the sensor in 11 children undergoing manometry at Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego. (The study also included one adult.) According to the authors, the device provided robust and reliable data.
“This system allowed us to measure stomach activity in response to a meal, revealing a time course of dynamics that matches clinically observed stomach emptying times,” the researchers wrote. “It has not previously been possible to observe such high-resolution meal-related GI dynamics by noninvasive means in free-living subjects. Because of the rich and unexplored feature space that these continuous EGG recordings generate, continuous monitoring of patients’ GI activity now has the potential to enable identification of personal profiles of EGG change that help describe idiopathic pathologies, optimize medical treatments, and evaluate effects of meal composition, exercise, etc., on gastric health.”
“The [sensor] is the best way to evaluate children with motility and functional GI disorders,” said Hayat Mousa, MD, the director of the Neurogastroenterology and Motility Center at Rady, who helped conduct the study, in a statement. “It provides information without need for sedation and it offers the flexibility to monitor kids while they continue their daily activities.”