Following a suspicious-looking pap smear, a colposcopy is often required. In addition to a visual inspection, a sample of cervical cells has to be taken, a painful procedure that involves an imposing looking instrument.
A new device is now being tried in a clinical setting at the University of California, Riverside that will hopefully prove itself just as capable at producing a useful sample but with much less pain and discomfort. The Soft-ECC fabric-based endocervical curettage device from Histologics, an Anaheim, California firm, look like a plastic toothbrush.
The brush is made of small hooks that pull on tissue and pluck off cells, trapping them within the hooks so that histologic analysis can be performed. This is done thanks to an innovative design of the hooks themselves, that essentially rotate as they’re pushed against tissue, scooping up the cells and then rotating back as the instrument is pulled back.
So far, results are looking positive both in the quality of the results achieved and the comfort levels of patients undergoing colposcopies, according to the researchers. “We found that the new fabric devices had significantly fewer ‘inadequate’ specimens—meaning, patients did not need to return for repeat biopsies,” said Justin T. Diedrich, M.D., a clinical faculty member in the UC Riverside School of Medicine. “This new device means that patients will get better results, with fewer patients needing repeat biopsies, which can increase patient satisfaction.”
Product page: Soft ECC…
Via: UC Riverside…