Diagnosing and monitoring inflammatory bowel diseases, such as Crohn’s disease, involves the use of endoscopic imaging, biopsies and serology. These infrequent tests cannot, however, identify sudden onsets and severe flare-ups to facilitate early intervention. Hence, about 70% of patients with Crohn’s disease require surgical intestinal resections in their lifetime. Here we report wireless, miniaturized and implantable temperature sensors for the real-time chronic monitoring of disease progression, which we tested for nearly 4 months in a mouse model of Crohn’s-disease-like ileitis. Local measurements of intestinal temperature via intraperitoneally implanted sensors held in place against abdominal muscular tissue via two sutures showed the development of ultradian rhythms at approximately 5 weeks before the visual emergence of inflammatory skip lesions. The ultradian rhythms showed correlations with variations in the concentrations of stress hormones and inflammatory cytokines in blood. Decreasing average temperatures over the span of approximately 23 weeks were accompanied by an increasing percentage of inflammatory species in ileal lesions. These miniaturized temperature sensors may aid the early treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases upon the detection of episodic flare-ups.

诊断和监测炎症性肠病（例如克罗恩病）涉及使用内窥镜成像、活检和血清学。然而，这些不频繁的测试无法识别突然发作和严重发作的情况，从而促进早期干预。因此，大约70%的克罗恩病患者一生中需要进行肠道切除手术。在这里，我们报告了用于实时慢性监测疾病进展的无线、微型和植入式温度传感器，我们在克罗恩病样回肠炎小鼠模型中对其进行了近 4 个月的测试。通过腹腔内植入的传感器（通过两根缝线固定在腹部肌肉组织上）对肠道温度进行局部测量，结果显示在视觉上出现炎症跳跃性病变之前约 5 周，出现了超电节律。超电节律显示出与血液中应激激素和炎症细胞因子浓度变化的相关性。在大约 23 周的时间里，平均气温不断下降，回肠病变中炎症物质的比例不断增加。这些微型温度传感器可能有助于在检测到间歇性发作后早期治疗炎症性肠病。