An Indian-origin researcher is developing a new screening technique for cervical cancer that would be more effective at spotting tumours early.

The new technique, developed by a team led by Nandita de Souza at the Institute of Cancer Research and London’s Royal Marsden Hospital, is called ‘diffusion weighted imaging’.

It significantly improves the level of contrast between developing tumours and surrounding tissues, allowing doctors to pinpoint early-stage cancers more easily.

De Souza’s team looked at 59 women between the ages of 24 and 83 over a period of 22 months. The new method spotted 88 per cent of cancers, compared with 77 per cent for the usual smear technique, according to the resulting study published in the journal Radiology.

De Souza, who previously worked in Goa, said “As cervical cancers are usually identified at a very early stage through screening, our imaging technology can localise them and determine the size of the tumour.

“We can use this information to plan less radical surgery, preserving as much of the uterus and the cervix as possible,” she said.

With conventional scanning techniques, small tumours are harder to identify or to differentiate from scar tissue, particularly if the patient has had a recent biopsy.

“In these cases, conventional imaging can overestimate the level of cancer within the cervix and result in major surgery leading to infertility,” she said adding “the quality of the information from the images produced using this new method has allowed us to identify and define smaller tumours more accurately, helping us to make decisions on surgery.”

Lesley Walker, director of cancer information at Cancer Research UK, said “This small study is extremely promising and provides a clear rationale for more extensive studies.”

Early detection reduces the need for radical surgery which can render women infertile. Around 2,700 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer in the UK every year. Around 1,000 die, mainly because the tumour is not spotted in time.