Centre grants Rs 80L to AIIMS Bhopal for Kavacervi testing

Screening for cancer is known to reduce mortality by early detection and treatment. First, screening must advance the time of diagnosis of cancers that are destined to cause death. Second, early treatment of these cancers must confer some advantage over treatment at clinical presentation. Unlike other cancer types, cervix cancer can be subjected to screening for early diagnosis and treatment.

Based on this Govt of India criteria, Department of Health Research (DHR) under the prestigious Grant-in-Aid (GIA) (Project ID: 2022-1988) research grant is sanctioned to Dr Rashmi Chowdhary (PI), Additional Professor AIIMS Bhopal and her team for testing of developed Mass-screening Cervical Cancer Device; KayaCervi in collaboration with her USA research partner Dr Sulatha Dwarkanath, CEO Kaya 17, USA.

This grant will be for three years. Research team of eminent clinicians and scientists will conduct study in the community settings of Bhopal. There are 36 villages (clusters) to be selected using Probability proportionate to size sampling (PPS) method according to the study’s inclusion and exclusion criteria. KayaCervi device has produced encouraging results in its pilot study in the AIIMS Bhopal hospital setting (2019-2020).

Researchers believe that this study will be a mile-stone in the early diagnosis of the cervical cancer especially through mass- screening in the rural area; device can be kept at the primary healthcare center, easy to perform test, it can work with the USB mode as well. Results of the test will be generated within 30 minutes once sample is collected. Daily Pioneer