New Hand held device to detect Cervical Cancer

  

Washington D.C. [USA], Jun 1 (ANI): A newly-developed handheld device for cervical cancer screening is promising to do away with uncomfortable speculums and high-cost colposcopes.

Duke University researchers’ “pocket colposcope” is a slender wand that can connect to many devices, including laptops or cell phones.

If widely adopted, women might even use the device to self-screen, transforming screening and cure rates in low-income countries, where cervical cancer is most prevalent.

While the Pap smear can be performed by a non-specialist, colposcopy requires visualization of the cervix, relying on highly trained professionals and expensive equipment that is not easily accessible to under-served populations. These factors make cervical cancer more prevalent in women living in low socioeconomic communities.

 “The mortality rate of cervical cancer should absolutely be zero percent because we have all the tools to see and treat it,” said researcher 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.”

Current standard practices for cervical cancer screening require three things: a speculum, a colposcope and a trained professional to administer the test.

The speculum is a metal device designed to spread the vaginal walls apart. The colposcope is a magnified telescopic device and camera designed to allow medical professionals to look through the speculum to see the cervix, which is located three to six inches inside the vagina. Colposcopes and people who know how to use them are difficult to find in many low-income regions, both domestically and internationally.

Ramanujam believes she can replace at least two of these requirements. Her laboratory has developed an all-in-one device that resembles a pocket-sized tampon with lights and a camera at one end. Health providers or even women themselves are able to capture images of the cervix using the rounded tip of the device to manipulate its position if necessary. The device also includes a channel through which contrast agents used for the cervical cancer screening procedure can be applied.

“We recruited 15 volunteers on Duke’s campus to try out the new integrated speculum-colposcope design,” said researcher Mercy Asiedu. “Nearly everyone said they preferred it to a traditional speculum and more than 80 percent of the women who tried the device were able to get a good image. Those that couldn’t felt that they just needed some practice.”

Ramanujam and Asiedu are now working on clinical trials to see how their design stacks up against the traditional colposcopy used with a speculum. By using both methods to visualize the cervix, the researchers will be able to make a direct comparison.

The study appears in the journal PLOS One. (ANI)

"One dose treatment of malaria" in the near future

Researchers at LSTM, working in partnership with the University of Liverpool and other colleagues, have developed a molecule which has the potential to become the first fully synthetic, one-dose treatment for malaria.

In a paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the multinational team describe the molecule, known as E209, as meeting the key requirements of the Medicines for Malaria Venture drug candidate profiles. The molecule is effective against parasites expressing the key genetic marker for artemisinin resistance in in vitro studies
The control and elimination of malaria requires effective treatment strategies. For several years, this has been in the form of artemisinin-based combination strategies (ACTs), which has seen artemisinin based drugs combined with a drug partner with a longer half-life.
The semi-synthetic ACTs have had a significant impact on malaria treatment however, the search for a fully synthetic alternative has been on for over a decade. The growing problem of resistance to current ACTs can lead to complete treatment failure. This has led the group to look at alternatives to retain the effectiveness against parasites with the known genetic markers of resistance while at the same time being fast acting.
LSTM’s Deputy Director, Professor Steve Ward, is a senior author on the paper. He said: “Extensive molecular investigations have demonstrated that mutations in the K13 gene are makers for artemisinin susceptibility and are linked to drug resistance in some malaria parasites. These mutations allow the parasite to survive exposure to the drug during the early stages of infection in the red blood cell. E209 is a breakthrough molecule, it is fully synthetic, retains the killing efficiency of the artemisinins, works against K13 mutant parasites and is slowly eliminated raising the hope that it could be used as a single dose cure.”
The other lead author Professor Paul O’Neill of the University of Liverpool, said: “E209 is a second-generation peroxide based drug, designed at Liverpool, with significant improvements over the gold standard antimalarial treatment artesunate. E209 contains a unique core with two endoperoxide units; through medicinal chemistry optimization, the stability, potency and pharmacokinetics of this class has now been optimized. The development of E209 has been made possible by our close partnership with the Medicines for Malaria Venture (Geneva) with MMV’s Expert Scientific Advisory Committee, providing invaluable input to the project.”

The extensive data set obtained for E209 was obtained through a global collaborative network of scientists around the world allowing this drug discovery project to be rapidly advanced.