Optiscan has completed a 15 patient clinical trial at the Royal Women’s Hospital (Melbourne, Australia) to assess the accuracy of a prototype rigid confocal endoscope for detection and diagnosis of early cervical cancer (cervical intraepithelial neoplasia – CIN). CIN is an early abnormal change in the cells of the cervical epithelium that may be classified as CIN1 (mild), CIN2 (moderate) or CIN3 (severe). Current methods used to detect changes in the cervix rely on the Pap smear and colposcopy, which may be subject to sampling and reading errors that allow disease to advance before it is detected. Results from the pilot study showed differences in nuclear density and size, which correlated well with conventional histology and suggest that confocal endomicroscopy could be used for in vivo detection of changes in the cervical epithelium. Several scientific papers in this area have been published.
