GPS for the body developed by team at MIT

^{A new method to track tumours has been developed by researchers and is being described as an “in-body GPS”.}

A team from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) created the tracking system ReMix, which is able to pinpoint the location of ingestible implants inside the body by using low-power wireless signals.

The system consists of a small ingestible marker that can be tracked using a wireless device that reflects radio signals off of patients. The team then used an algorithm to locate the exact position of the market.

One of the biggest benefits of the marker is that it does not need an external source of energy as it is able to reflect the signal transmitted by the wireless device outside the body.

So far, ReMix has been used in animal tests, during which the CSAIL team demonstrated they could track the implant to centimetre-level accuracy.

Potential applications for the tracking system include it being used to deliver drugs to specific regions in the body and even cancer treatment.

The team envisages that ReMix could be used in proton therapy by enabling doctors to better determine the location of a tumour. Proton therapy involves using beams of magnet-controlled protons on tumours, a technique which requires a high level of accuracy.

And, as tumours can potentially move during the radiation process, healthy tissues can be exposed to radiation. ReMix could potentially allow doctors to better locate the position of a tumour and even pause treatment or redirect it into the right position.

At its current state though, ReMix is not accurate enough to be used in clinical settings and a margin of error closer to a couple of millimetres is needed for the system to be used.

MIT PhD student Deepak Vasisht, lead author on the new paper said: “We want a model that's technically feasible, while still complex enough to accurately represent the human body. If we want to use this technology on actual cancer patients one day, it will have to come from better modelling a person's physical structure.”

The team have high hopes for ReMix and envision that the system could help the widespread adoption of proton therapy centres.

"One reason that [proton therapy] is so expensive is because of the cost of installing the hardware," Vasisht says. "If these systems can encourage more applications of the technology, there will be more demand, which will mean more therapy centres, and lower prices for patients," Vasisht.