Emerging Optical Techniques for Detection of Oral, Cervical and Anal Cancer in Low-Resource Settings

Cancers of the oral and anogenital regions are a growing global health problem that disproportionately impact women and men living in developing countries. The high death rate in developing countries is largely due to the fact that these countries do not have the appropriate medical infrastructure and resources to support the organized screening and diagnostic programs that are available in the developed world. Emerging optical diagnostics techniques, such as optical spectroscopy, reflectance imaging, and fluorescence imaging, are noninvasive techniques that are sensitive to multiple cancer biomarkers and have shown the potential as a cost?effective and fast tool for diagnosis of early precancerous changes in the cervix, oral cavity and anus. This paper provides a review of current strategies for prevention, screening and diagnostic tests of oral, cervical and anal cancers and development in optical diagnostic techniques that could potentially be used to improve current practice in resource?limited settings.