Point-of-care diagnosis of cervical cancer: potential protein biomarkers in cervicovaginal fluid

Cervical cancer (CxCa) is preventable and treatable via vaccination and screening. Cervicovaginal fluid (CVF) represents the physiological components of the female genital tract. These components are suitable to be utilized for clinical purposes, therefore, making CVF a suitable material for disease screening approaches. Due to high false-negative result rates and low attendance of current expensive routine CxCa screening methods, it has become more important to develop a point-of-care (POC) screening method that every single woman could reach worldwide. For this purpose, various self-usage apparatus have been developed for screening of the human papilloma virus (HPV) infection. Furthermore, due to the low specificity of HPV tests and the high clearance rate of HPV infections, many patients undergo overtreatment. Since proteins play an important role in cellular process and carcinogenesis, it is appropriate to use proteins in a simple screening test for the detection of carcinogenesis. In this article, POC screening tests and the studies of discovery of CVF protein biomarkers will be overviewed to consider the development of a method that can be used for the rapid and conceivable screening method of CxCa.