www.industry-asia-pacific.com
23
'24
Written on Modified on
BD News
BD PARTNERS WITH CAMTECH HEALTH TO EXPAND CERVICAL CANCER SCREENING IN SINGAPORE
The companies will offer the first-ever program in the country to offer at-home self-collection of samples for HPV testing.
BD announced a strategic partnership with Camtech Health, a digital health company focused on at-home health testing, to advance cervical cancer screening by offering the first-ever option for women in Singapore to self-collect a sample in the privacy of their own homes.
The program combines the Camtech Health HPV (human papillomavirus) test for self-collection with the BD Onclarity™ HPV Assay, which is a clinically validated test that can simultaneously detect 14 high-risk HPV strains (or "genotypes"). The program objective is to improve the rate of cervical cancer screening in Singapore, where less than half of eligible women are currently being tested.
At-home collection can help address the urgent public health challenge of reaching women who do not attend routine cervical cancer screening.
- Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer among women globally, with an estimated 604,000 new cases and 342,000 deaths in 2020.
- Almost all cervical cancer cases (more than 95%) are caused by a persistent HPV infection, an extremely common virus transmitted through sexual contact.
- In Singapore, cervical cancer ranks as the 10th most frequent cancer among women and the 4th most frequent cancer among women between 30 and 39 years of age.
- Cervical cancer screening among all women in Singapore aged 25 – 74 decreased by 17% between 2007 and 2019; from 58% to 48%.
- Among those aged 25-29, the decline has been more precipitous—from nearly 50% in 2007 to only 21% in 2019.
HPVs are a large group of related viruses. Each virus in the group is given a number, which is called an HPV genotypevii (or "type"). BD Onclarity™ is the only FDA-approved assay that tests for an extended set of HPV types individually, and particularly for HPV52 and HPV33/58, three HPV types that pose a high-risk for causing cervical cancer in Singapore. Most clinically validated tests report multiple HPV types in a single pooled result, which can mask the true risk of developing cervical cancer. Being able to identify the high-risk genotypes that are prevalent in cervical cancers in the country is critical to the detection and prevention of cervical cancer.
Combining HPV self-collection with an assay that individually identified more kinds of HPV allows clinicians to focus on those women at highest risk while not overtreating those at very low risk by allowing risk stratification directly on the screening sample. The BD Onclarity™ HPV Assay received the industry's first CE Mark for HPV screening from at-home self-collected vaginal samples.
Combining HPV self-collection with an assay that individually identified more kinds of HPV allows clinicians to focus on those women at highest risk while not overtreating those at very low risk by allowing risk stratification directly on the screening sample. The BD Onclarity™ HPV Assay received the industry's first CE Mark for HPV screening from at-home self-collected vaginal samples.
