Opportunity of Mobile Telemedicine Technology for Cervical Cancer Screening in Developing Countries: A Systematic Review

Background: Cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in females. However, a largescale screening of precancerous lesions with cytology is hardly possible, because of the lack of specialists and infrastructures. Telemedicine describes the use of mobile phone including picture, video, or email to exchange information in the context of health care between patients, providers, consultants, and content for the purpose of education, evaluation, decision-making, and treatment. The purpose of this study was to systematically review the opportunity of mobile telemedicine technology for cervical cancer screening in developing countries. Subjects and Method: A systematic review was conducted by searching published article from PubMed, Sage Publications, Scopus, and ProQuest online journal databases. The research question was formulated in PICOS format: (1) Population; (2) Intervention; (3) Comparison; (4) Outcome; and (5) Study design. An initial search found 401 articles. 8 articles were met criteria and selected for this study. Results: Mobile telemedicine is used as a complementary alternative intervention to increase the coverage of early detection of cervical cancer. Visual inspection acetic acid and complemented with digital photography has been used in Rwanda with a significant success. The health workers use a digital camera to capture images of the cervix and share it with remote experts for consultation and further diagnosis. In a different example, the Botswana model involves taking images of the cervix using mobile smartphone and transmitting the images to remote experts through multimedia messaging service (MMS). Conclusion: Mobile telemedicine offers a potential complementary screening method for pre cervical cancer lesion diagnosis.