It always seems impossible until it’s done. Nelson Mandela If...

It always seems impossible until it’s done.

Nelson Mandela

If you know Tiresias’s personal history, you would understand his special interest in cancer of the cervix.

Cervical cancer is a preventable disease and Australia leads the world in its prevention with HPV vaccination. Worldwide cervical cancer is common, with more than half a million cases per year and over 300,000 unpleasant and very painful deaths per year. The largest burden of cervical cancer deaths is in the low-income countries of the developing world. There are some very good reasons for this, and you will see, it is unlikely to change without some radical thinking and applications of technology not currently being used.

The main screening for cervical cancer is the Papanicolau (Pap) smear. The Pap smear may seem a simple test. It however requires a high level technical and health infrastructure and unfortunately, in most countries in the world, this is lacking and unlikely to develop any time soon. You see my friends, the Pap smear is not just a matter of taking a specimen with a swab from the cervix. There is a whole and complex backing behind it to process the swab. There has to be staining and preparation of the cells and then these have to be examined by a cytologist who can recognise cancer cells. This is simply not available and not going to be available any time soon. However, just like the mobile phone and the internet allowed developing countries to leapfrog the lack of terrestrial communication infrastructure, Tiresias can see that the Optiscan digital confocal in-vivo microscopy can leapfrog the current problems in cervical cancer screening in the developing world. With the ViewnVivo screening everything is changed. The examiner does not have to be a cytologist or a gynaecologist with histological expertise. There are no tissue samples to be taken, stored, catalogued, prepared, examined by a cytologist, reported, communicated, patients recontacted etc. etc. With the Optiscan’s AI enhanced ViewnVivo, connected via the internet, the operator can have high degree of accuracy instantly in the field. Furthermore, digital biopsies can be viewed, if necessary, by a cervical cancer expert histopathologist-cytologist, in his or her office, anywhere in the world, who can instantly feedback immediately to the operator. This is revolution. This would go a long way in mitigating the suffering and number of deaths in this, the fourth most common cancer in women.

Given the attempts to deal with major health problems in developing countries and the foundations like the Gates Foundation, who have dedicated large sums of money to these efforts, Tiresias would like to think a few hundred million dollars should be easy enough to find for such a cause. Furthermore, the Australian government, which throws hundreds of billions of dollars to save the economy and promises to foster industries which will give meaningful high-quality high technology jobs should throw its full weight behind the Optiscan project. Tiresias hopes that somebody has or is approaching them. An investment by the government in this revolutionary Australian technology will create proper jobs of high quality of great benefit to Australia and humanity.