Investigation of gastrointestinal transport by magnetic marker localization.

The method of magnetic marker monitoring MMM with a biomagnetic measurement system allows the tracking of the transport of solid drug forms with high spatiotemporal resolution. This technique enables to display the path and the disintegration of the magnetic marked pharmaceutical dosage form via the decrease of its magnetic moment. The method was used to assess exogenous factor on the esophageal transport of orally administered solid drug forms in five healthy volunteers. In a drug delivery study we have applied the MMM to monitor the path of a tablet during the gastrointestinal passage and to visualize the disintegration in the small intestine by the magnetic moment of the tablet. The signal to noise ratio of the measurement data was improved by ICA filtering.