New device designed by Duke University team may make cervical cancer testing more affordable
The device designed by Nimmi Ramanujam - Robert W. Carr Jr. Professor of Biomedical Engineering - and her team of researchers from the Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University, may offer the option to avoid the uncomfortable speculums and high-cost colposcopes.
This point-of-care tampon ("pocket") colposcope provides a solution to the many challenges of screening in low and middle-income countries, reported the Duke Chronicle.
“The mortality rate of cervical cancer should absolutely be zero percent because we have all the tools to see and treat it,” said Nimmi Ramanujam. “But it isn’t. That is in part because women do not receive screening or do not follow up on a positive screening to have colposcopy performed at a referral clinic. We need to bring colposcopy to women so that we can reduce this complicated string of actions into a single touch point,” she was quoted by the media as saying.
Image: PrattSchoolOfEngineering website
