Tiny biodegradable circuits for releasing painkillers inside the body

EPFL researchers have developed biodegradable microresonators that can be heated locally with a wireless system. Doctors could soon be using them in implants to control the release of painkillers within tissue. Patients fitted with an orthopedic prosthetic commonly experience a period of intense pain after surgery. In an effort to control the pain, surgeons inject painkillers into the tissue during the operation. When that wears off a day or two later, the patients are given morphine through a catheter placed near the spine. Yet catheters are not particularly comfortable, and the drugs spread throughout the body, affecting all organs. Researchers in EPFL's Microsystems Laboratory are now working on a biodegradable implant that would release a local anesthetic on-demand over several days.