Colorectal Cancer project

[Haarini]

Hello Science Expert!
I'm a grade 8 student who is doing a project on colorectal cancer as my science fair project.I am planning to design a pill that has the ability to sense a cancerous tumor and inject medicine right into the tumor. This project is mainly going to be done from a hypothetical perspective of a stage 0-2 colorectal cancer patient. After doing some research, I found a pill that opens up with micro needles in the small intestine which injects semaglutide leading to stimulation of insulin in the bodies of hyperglycemic patients. I've been thinking of doing a similar idea for my project, except I would be designing a micro needle pill that will have sensors on the exterior of the pill which will inject a given medicine into a colorectal cancer tumor. I have a question more about the injecting part though. When I did research about the semaglutide-injecting pill, it stated that while injecting into the small intestine, no pain or discomfort would be experienced by the patient since the small intestine does not have an pain receptors. However, is it the same for the large intestine and the rectum? Do the walls of the large intestine and the rectum have any pain receptors to feel the injections?
Thanks for your help and support!
Regards,
Haarini

[SciB]

Hi Haarini,

I don't know the answer to your question about pain receptors in the large intestine. From what I read (e.g., https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2271299) the GI tract in general has few pain receptors and the stimulus has to be quite strong before it is felt. I think your micro-injection device could be used without causing any pain to the patient.

Sybee

[Haarini]

Hi Ms.Sybee!
Thanks for your reply! This would really help for my project
Sincerely,
Haarini

[SciB]

You are welcome, Haarini. This sounds like a really interesting project. Let me know if you have more questions.

Sybee