Hydrogel-based capsules could expand and reside in the GI tract for days, slowly releasing medication
Around half of all medications for chronic diseases are not taken as prescribed, costing the U.S. health care system more than $100 billion in avoidable hospital stays each year.
This noncompliance is even more significant in the developing world, where health care budgets are chronically overstretched and patients treated for diseases such as malaria must take multiple drugs with complex dose regimens.
To help ensure patients receive their full course of treatment, researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have developed a new set of drug delivery materials, which can reside in the stomach for up to nine days, slowly releasing their dosage of medication.
Triggerable tough hydrogels for gastric resident dosage forms
Jinyao Liu, Yan Pang, Shiyi Zhang, Cody Cleveland, Xiaolei Yin, Lucas Booth, Jiaqi Lin, Young-Ah Lucy Lee, Hormoz Mazdiyasni, Sarah Saxton, Ameya R. Kirtane, Thomas von Erlach, Jaimie Rogner, Robert Langer & Giovanni Traverso
Nature Communications 8, Article number: 124 (2017)
doi:10.1038/s41467-017-00144-z
Nature Communications 8, Article number: 124 (2017)
doi:10.1038/s41467-017-00144-z
