Technology Solutions

Technology Challenges and Opportunities for Cervical Cancer Prevention

PHC facilities serve an essential role in the prevention of cervical cancer. They face multiple challenges, however, to fully implement national and WHO guidelines for cervical cancer control. New technologies and improvements to existing ones are needed to address these challenges and create new opportunities to stop the progression of HPV infection to cervical cancer. Missed pre-cancer detection is currently a critical gap to fill, with tools and equipment needed that can be effectively used for care at the PHC level.

GH Labs has focused on developing devices that are low-cost, easy to use by care providers, and readily accessible at the PHC level so they can enable the screen-and-treat approaches recommended in WHO guidelines: AVE, an AI-supported Automated Visual Evaluation device for enhanced visual assessment of the cervix, and NAATOS HPV, a nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) with lateral flow technology on-a-strip (OS) for HPV detection (including multiplexing to simultaneously detect a greater number of HPV strains).

Diagnosis

Cervical biopsies for formal diagnosis of cervical pre-cancer and cancer are not commonly available in LMICs. Instead, a series of screening tests are used in a screen-and-treat approach.