Title
Development of a single-board computer high-resolution microendoscope (PiHRME) to increase access to cervical cancer screening in underserved areas
Conference Dates
July 23-26, 2017
Abstract
Over 85% of cervical cancer deaths occur in developing countries.1 Even though the early detection and treatment of cervical precancerous lesions has been shown to prevent invasive cervical cancer, limited resources make it difficult to implement standard cervical cancer screening methods, such as the Pap Smear, in low-resource areas. Instead, many developing countries rely on the visual inspection of the cervix with acetic acid (VIA) to help identify precancerous and cancerous lesions. While VIA has a high sensitivity (82.14%), it has a poor specificity (50.00%), resulting in the overtreatment of women and misallocation of limited resources.2 Recent studies have shown that combining VIA with high-resolution microendoscope (HRME) imaging increases the specificity of cervical cancer screening.3-4 The HRME is a low-cost imaging system (~$2,100) that allows the user to image epithelial tissue in vivo at sub-cellular resolutions at the point-of-care. The current HRME imaging system is also accompanied with automatic image analysis software to distinguish normal and low-grade lesions from high-grade precancerous and cancerous lesions of the cervix.
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Recommended Citation
Sonia G. Parra, Pelham Keahey, Kathleen Schmeler, Mauricio Maza, Philip Castle, and Rebecca Richards-Kortum, "Development of a single-board computer high-resolution microendoscope (PiHRME) to increase access to cervical cancer screening in underserved areas" in "Advances in Optics for Biotechnology, Medicine and Surgery XV", Peter So, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA Kate Bechtel, Triple Ring Technologies, USA Ivo Vellekoop, University of Twente, The Netherlands Michael Choma, Yale University, USA Eds, ECI Symposium Series, (2017). https://dc.engconfintl.org/biotech_med_xv/20