THIBANG DIPHATLHA STUDY LAUNCH
The University of Botswana will launch a study titled ‘Thibang Diphatlha on the 15th of November 2022 which discusses the testing adaptive strategies to close the gap on cervical cancer diagnosis.
In Botswana, a nation with a particularly high prevalence of HIV (18.5%), and cervical cancer incidence (34.4 per 100,000) and mortality (20.1 per 100,000), prior research identified substantial delays in cervical cancer care from diagnosis to treatment in a cohort of nearly 1,000 patients, driven by myriad individual- and system-level barriers.
To help fill this critical gap, through a collaboration between the University of Botswana, Ministry of Health, the University of Pennsylvania and Botswana-UPenn Partnership, investigators will test the effectiveness of adaptive strategies on timely treatment adoption using a hybrid (type III) and pragmatic Sequential Multiple Assignment Randomized Trial (SMART) design, complemented by an evaluation using mixed-methods.
Cervical cancer is one of the most common female cancers globally, with approximately 90% of cases and deaths occurring in Low- and-Middle-Income-Countries (LMICs), particularly those with high rates of HIV.
