New Test for Cervical Cancer Tackles Healthcare Inequalities

A research project at Stony Brook University aimed to break barriers for cervical cancer diagnostics received a grant from the Prevent Cancer Foundation.

Eric Brouzes, an associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, is the lead researcher on the project. The project received a two-year grant of $50K per year. The main goal of the research is to develop new testing methods for cervical cancer that do not require expensive equipment.

“We’ve been developing some unrelated technologies, and we saw a new way of running quantitative tests,” said Brouzes. “What is critical about that novelty was that we could use it without equipment. This led us to diagnostic problems in low-resource settings, and one particular issue that came up was cervical cancer. Currently, there is no good way to predict who is going to have cervical cancer, and so our method aims to tackle that.”

HPV causes cervical cancer, but current tests only evaluate if a person is positive or negative for the virus. Only those with active infections, however, are at risk for cancer. To approach this challenge, Brouzes’ team is developing a molecular test to determine cervical cancer risk directly.

“The predictive value of HPV tests is currently pretty poor,” said Brouzes. “They have a very good predictive negative value, meaning that if you are negative today, you will not develop cancer within the next five years. But it cannot pinpoint who is going to develop cancer.”

The research is in its early stages, and the research team is focusing on developing the testing device, the molecular test and cost-effective solutions for testing samples. Some challenges the team is tackling include designing devices for mass production and ensuring accuracy in the chemistry.

“While negative HPV test results can help rule out cervical cancer and high-grade precursor lesions, most positive tests reflect transient and clinically insignificant infections,” said Kenneth Shroyer, chair of the Department of Pathology. “By contrast, Dr. Brouzes and his team aim to develop a point-of-care device that could identify HPV positive cases that are at greatest risk for progression to cancer. If successful, this could provide a major advancement in cervical cancer screening.”

The ideal outcome of the research is to produce an affordable and accurate diagnostic kit for cervical cancer. Without the need for expensive equipment, the project also aims to break barriers in healthcare inequality and access.

“The issue is in communities that don’t have access to healthcare,” said Brouzes. “Because in the modern day, cervical cancer can be treated, as long as it’s caught early enough. So we started our proposal with ‘no women should die of cervical cancer today’.”

— Angelina Livigni