# Optimizing delivery of ethyl cellulose ethanol for ablation of cervical precancer

> **NIH NIH R43** · CALLA HEALTH FOUNDATION · 2020 · $300,000

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
Cervical cancer affects the lives of half a million women worldwide each year. Over half of these women die, even
though cervical cancer is highly preventable through vaccination or early screening, diagnosis, and treatment of
cervical pre-cancer. Cervical cancer prevention consists of three visits in the U.S.: 1) screening using the
Papanicolaou smear; 2) colposcopy followed by biopsy of cervical abnormalities for women with positive screening
results; 3) treatment by excising the lesion using a Loop Electrosurgical Excision Procedure (LEEP) for women with
cervical pre-cancer. This three-visit model is not practical for use in medically underserved regions due to the
technologies and expertise needed and patient attrition between clinic visits. Our team has already developed a novel
Pocket colposcope and machine learning algorithms that when combined provide high-quality, magnified visualization
and automated diagnosis with comparable performance to standard-of-care colposcopy. However, screening and
diagnosis alone will not lead to decreases in cervical cancer mortality if access to point-of-care treatment is limited.
Recently, the thermocoagulator has gained acceptance for ablation of cervical pre-cancer lesions as it does not require
consumables (continuous supply of pressurized liquid nitrogen for cryotherapy) or a stable power supply (for LEEP).
However, low-cost thermocoagulators have frequent failures based on reports of field-testing and the more reliable
versions cost more than $10k. To address these well-documented shortcomings, our group is working to establish a
low-cost ablative therapy using a ubiquitous agent, ethanol to treat cervical pre-cancer. While ethanol ablation has a
long history of clinical use, its direct injection into tissue leads to non-uniform distribution and hence low efficacy in
the region of interest. We propose a new formulation of ethanol using a polymer called ethyl cellulose (generally
regarded as safe by the FDA), which will act as a slow release gel without off target toxicity, and an automated injector
to control delivery of ethanol-ethyl cellulose (EEC) into the region of interest. The goal of this Phase I SBIR grant
is to establish controlled delivery of EEC for cervical pre-cancer treatment using a combination of tissue
surrogates and ex vivo and in vivo models of the swine cervix to induce a zone of necrosis that is consistent
with thermocoagulation, a commonly used ablation method. In Aim 1, an automated needle injector will be
designed for reproducible EEC delivery in tissue surrogates by maximizing the ratio of distributed to injected volume
and minimizing back flow and crack formation. In Aim 2, the automated needle injector will be tested in ex vivo swine
cervices to establish the distribution of the agent within the defined region of interest and also to determine the number
of injections needed to achieve optimal coverage. In Aim 3, the injector safety and efficacy will be tested in in...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10140866
- **Project number:** 1R43CA257303-01
- **Recipient organization:** CALLA HEALTH FOUNDATION
- **Principal Investigator:** Mercy Nyamewaa Asiedu
- **Activity code:** R43 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $300,000
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-09-14 → 2022-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10140866

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10140866, Optimizing delivery of ethyl cellulose ethanol for ablation of cervical precancer (1R43CA257303-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10140866. Licensed CC0.

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