Mumbai (Maharashtra), June 24: Karkinos Healthcare, a 100 per cent step-down subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited, has completed HPV DNA screening for more than one lakh women across India, marking a significant milestone in expanding access to cervical cancer screening and follow-up care.
The achievement strengthens efforts to prevent cervical cancer by combining screening with a digitally enabled care continuum that includes awareness, tracking, triage, navigation and follow-up care, a release said.
According to Karkinos Healthcare, cervical cancer prevention is often limited not only by access to screening but also by loss to follow-up after a positive test result. Its model aims to address both challenges through World Health Organisation-recommended HPV DNA testing and integrated care pathways.
Commenting on the milestone, Dr Neerja Bhatla, Consultant, Early Detection and Women Wellness, Karkinos Healthcare, said, "The evidence has been clear for some time that HPV DNA testing is the most reliable primary screen we have for cervical cancer. What matters now is not testing at scale alone but also ensuring that every woman who tests positive is carried through to diagnosis and treatment across the care continuum. A program that can demonstrate that linkage at this volume, and well beyond the big cities, is exactly the direction India's cervical cancer elimination effort needs."
Karkinos Healthcare said the programme has been implemented across multiple geographies through public health programmes, public-private partnerships, CSR-supported initiatives, nurse-assisted and self-sampling models, district-level screening efforts and focused outreach programmes for underserved and high-risk communities.
A large share of the women screened under the programme came from areas where access to healthcare and cancer screening services remains limited.
Dr Goura Kishore Rath, Senior Oncology Advisor at Karkinos Healthcare, said, "For decades, the obstacle in this country has not been our understanding of cervical cancer; it has been the reach. Bringing a high-quality test to women in districts and small towns and then carrying them through the system rather than leaving them with only a result, is how a public-health gain is actually made. This is the model that has to scale."
The release said the initiative demonstrates that high-quality HPV DNA testing can be delivered at scale in India through technology-driven care pathways.
Sripriya Rao, Chief Growth Officer - Women Wellness, and Head of Distributed Cancer Care Network (DCCN), Karkinos Healthcare, said, "Every one of these one lakh tests represents a woman who was met where she was. The measure of this work is not how many women we reached, but how many we did not lose along the way, and whether we did it with dignity, and sustainably, for women who have historically been the last to be served. That is the standard we hold ourselves to."
"At Karkinos, we dedicate this milestone to the late Dr R. Sankaranarayanan, fondly known to us as 'Shankar Sir', whose scientific leadership and unwavering conviction in early detection laid the foundation for this work. Shankar Sir believed that no woman should die of a cancer we already know how to prevent. Backed by the belief, conviction, and unflinching support of Reliance, we are confident of carrying this journey forward to one million tests next, and to one hundred million responsibly, sustainably, and without ever letting a single woman fall through the pathway. We also acknowledge the continued guidance of Dr Partha Basu of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in the science of cancer prevention," Rao added.
The release said the infrastructure and learnings developed through the programme can support wider adoption of organised cervical cancer screening and contribute to India's efforts to eliminate cervical cancer.
Karkinos Healthcare noted that cervical cancer remains one of the most preventable cancers and that timely screening, early detection and appropriate follow-up care can help avoid most cervical cancer-related deaths. It said expanding access to high-quality screening remains one of the biggest opportunities to improve women's health outcomes across the country.
