Pocket Colposcope: Increased Distribution and Adoption (2017-2018)

Cervical cancer affects the lives of 500,000 women worldwide each year, resulting in more than 270,000 deaths annually. Because the majority of cases occur in low-income countries that cannot afford the tools commonly used in the United States, new solutions must be found.

To address this challenge, researchers at Duke’s Global Women’s Health Technologies Center have developed a Pocket (Point-of-Care Tampon) Colposcope to screen for cervical cancer in low-resource settings.

In 2016-2017, the team conducted a global value chain analysis where the identification of specific actions can help increase the likelihood of adoption of the Pocket Colposcope in Peru. The 2017-2018 team focused on the activities involved in launching a community health provider program to implement Pocket colposcopy at the primary care setting.

The team evaluated the best practices for creating a training program for community-level providers and developed a comprehensive and culturally appropriate training manual to be iterated on based on feedback from community health providers working with La Liga Contra el Cancer. The team also conducted preliminary field testing of their training protocols in Lima, Peru, and assessed the impact of the training model on the Peruvian community health providers.

The team produced a training toolkit for Pocket implementation; a promotional video for patient advocacy an awareness in the Peruvian context; a physical platform prototype for demonstrating the Pocket Colposcope; a cost-effective analysis of the device in Peru; and a qualitative stakeholder assessment.

Timing

Summer 2017 – Summer 2018

Team Outcomes

Amy Finnegan, Saumya Sao, Megan J. Huchko. “Using a Chord Diagram to Visualize Dynamics in Contraceptive Use: Bringing Data into Practice.” 2019. Global Health: Science and Practice:7.

Cervical Cancer Care in Peru: Leveraging the Pocket Colposcope to Reduce Loss to Follow Up (poster by Nimmi Ramanujam, Jose Jeronimo, Megan Huchko, Ernesto Ortiz, Marlee Krieger); Audience Choice Winner at Bass Connections Showcase, April 18, 2018

Mueller J*, Asma B*, Lam C, Krieger M, Asiedu M, Gallagher J, Hariprasad R, Malliga J, Mchome B, Oneko O, Taylor P, Venegas G, Wanyoro A, Muasher L, Schmitt J, Ramanujam N. 2017. "Evaluation of a point of care tampon (POCkeT) colposcope as a screening device for cervical cancer among international physicians." Journal of Lower Genital Tract Disease 21(2):112-119. *Authors contributed equally.

Lam C, Mueller J, Asma B, Asiedu M, Krieger M, Chitalia R, Dahl D, Schmitt J, Ramanujam N. "Integrated strategy for improving durability, contrast, and portability of the POCkeT Colposcope for cervical cancer screening." PLoS one, submitted.