The ANCHOR Study

Professional, Medical Peripherals, Colposcopes / Anoscopes

Project Description

While deaths from AIDS are way down, anal cancer among people living with HIV is on the rise. We think that anal cancer can be prevented by routine screening and removal of precancerous cells. This strategy has reduced cervical cancer rates by 80%. But to get the insurance companies to cover routine anal cancer screening and preventative treatment, we need to prove that this strategy actually prevents cancer. The best way to show that is to recruit people with High Grade Squamous Intraepithelial Lesions (or HSIL for short) into a study and assign them randomly to a treatment arm or a monitoring arm. We then follow everyone for five years to compare the rates of cancer in both study arms. At the end of the study we'll know whether screening and treatment of HSIL are effective strategies in preventing anal cancer. We'll also learn a lot about HPV and other risk factors and why these sometimes cause cancer.

Anal cancer is often symptom free and people aren't aware they have it. It's usually mistaken for hemorrhoids and by the time it's diagnosed, it may have spread to other parts of the body.

Participation in this study will help determine whether screening and treatment of HSIL should be the standard of care for people living with HIV and for other groups of people with a high risk for anal cancer. In addition, the tissue samples collected in this study will help advance our understanding of different HPV strains and their role in causing anal and cervical cancers.

Second OpinionTM Professional has been chosen to capture and store the High Resolution Anoscopy (HRA) images and video clips for the study. We have also created a set of ANCHOR forms that plug in and integrate with Second OpinionTM Professional. Along with our software, many of the ANCHOR sites have also purchased high resolution c-mount digital video cameras to connect to their Colposcope / Anoscopes.

In 2013, UCSF won this eight-year grant from the National Cancer Institute for a major investigation into anal cancer, a debilitating and sometimes fatal disease largely concentrated among people with HIV. Click the link for more information on the UCSF ANCRE Center.

Project Info

Client: UCSF ANCRE Center

Category: Infectious Diseases, Colposcopes / Anoscopes

Products: Professional, Medical Peripherals

Website: The ANCHOR Study

Website: UCSF ANCRE Center

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