PIO invents handheld cancer screening device
Houston: An IndianAmerican professor and her team have developed a new handheld, low-cost device that will soon check cervical cancer without using a painful speculum.
Nimmi Ramanujam and her team of researchers at Duke University in North Carolina say the “pocket colposcope”, which can connect to a laptop or mobile phone, could even lead to women being able to self-screen.
Ramanujam has developed the “all-in-one device” which resembles a pocket-sized tampon. Her team asked 15 volunteers to try the new integrated design and more than 80 per cent said they were able to get a good image.
According to Ramanujam, “The mortality rate of cervical cancer should absolutely be zero per cent because we have all the tools to see and treat it. 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 complicated string of actions in a single touch point.”
Nimmi Ramanujam has developed the “all-in-one device” which resembles a pocket-sized tampon
It has a colposcope design with lights and a camera at one end
It also has an inserter through which the colposcope can be inserted to make the entire procedure speculum free