Sensor detection in gynaecological medicine

Abstract

Gynecological medicine involves the diagnoses and treatment of illnesses and issues involving female reproductive organs. This review is focused on female cancers of their reproductive organs including ovarian cancer, cervical cancer, and uterine/endometrial cancer, as well as endometriosis, and infections within the reproductive tract. For each of the illnesses the current state of screening and diagnosis is investigated. These typically involve screening of symptoms for the illnesses, followed by imaging with ultrasound or MRI in the case of cancers and endometriosis, or swab cultures in the case of infection. These techniques are time consuming and require trained professionals to perform, and thus are expensive and difficult to apply to general population screening. Faster, lower cost, and simple screening methods need to be developed as screening is essential to catching these illnesses in an early stage, allowing their more effective treatment and improving outcomes for patients. The realm of sensors and biosensors offers a way to screen for blood, tissue, and urine based biomarkers for these illnesses. This review looks at a selection of biomarkers for each of the gynecological illnesses, and investigates some of the sensors that have been developed for them including various electrochemical, colorimetric, plasmon based sensors, and more. Future work in this field should not only focus on the accuracy of developed sensors for these illnesses, but also focus on their ease of use, ability to be mass produced, and keeping their cost low, all of which would allow the sensors to be used in general population screening.