For all the advancements medicine has seen in recent decades, there remains a major public health challenge: cancer. However, a new surgical tool called the iKnife has shown significant promise in improving the diagnosis of endometrial (womb) cancer. Professor Sadaf Ghaem-Maghami discusses how this new tool could transform the clinical care of thousands of patients.
Endometrial (womb) cancer is the most common gynaecological cancer in the UK, and the fourth most common cancer in women. It affects 9,300 women and people with gynae organs every year in the UK alone. It generally occurs in postmenopausal women, but up to 25% of cases are diagnosed in the pre-menopause. Its main symptom is one of abnormal bleeding. These women are usually referred to the two-week wait clinics for diagnosis or exclusion of cancer.