Karkinos Healthcare, a 100% step-down subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited, has completed HPV DNA screening for over one lakh women across India, marking an important milestone in expanding access to high-quality cervical cancer screening and follow-up care.
Cervical cancer prevention is often limited not only by access to screening, but also by loss to follow-up after a positive result. Karkinos Healthcare’s model addresses both challenges through World Health Organization-recommended HPV DNA testing and a digitally enabled continuum of care that integrates awareness, screening, tracking, triage, navigation, and follow-up.
Commenting on this milestone, Dr Neerja Bhatla, Consultant, Early Detection and Women Wellness, Karkinos Healthcare, who is also a Padma Shri awardee and globally acclaimed leader in women’s health and oncology, said, “The evidence has been clear for some time that HPV DNA testing is the most reliable primary screen we have for cervical cancer. What matters now is not testing at scale alone but also ensuring that every woman who tests positive is carried through to diagnosis and treatment across the care continuum. A program that can demonstrate that linkage at this volume, and well beyond the big cities, is exactly the direction India’s cervical cancer elimination effort needs.”
“For decades, the obstacle in this country has not been our understanding of cervical cancer; it has been the reach. Bringing a high-quality test to women in districts and small towns and then carrying them through the system rather than leaving them with only a result, is how a public-health gain is actually made. This is the model that has to scale,” added Dr Goura Kishore Rath, Senior Oncology Advisor, Karkinos Healthcare, who has also served as Head, NCI-India, and Chief, DRBRAIRCH-AIIMS.
Ms Sripriya Rao, Chief Growth Officer – Women Wellness, and Head of Distributed Cancer Care Network (DCCN), Karkinos Healthcare, further said, “Every one of these one lakh tests represents a woman who was met where she was. The measure of this work is not how many women we reached, but how many we did not lose along the way, and whether we did it with dignity, and sustainably, for women who have historically been the last to be served. That is the standard we hold ourselves to.”
Page 1 of 3 “At Karkinos, we dedicate this milestone to the late Dr R. Sankaranarayanan, fondly known to us as ‘Shankar Sir’, whose scientific leadership and unwavering conviction in early detection laid the foundation for this work. Shankar Sir believed that no woman should die of a cancer we already know how to prevent. Backed by the belief, conviction, and unflinching support of Reliance, we are confident of carrying this journey forward to one million tests next, and to one hundred million responsibly, sustainably, and without ever letting a single woman fall through the pathway. We also acknowledge the continued guidance of Dr Partha Basu of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in the science of cancer prevention,” says Ms Sripriya Rao.
The milestone has been achieved through multiple implementation models across diverse geographies, including public-health programmes, public-private partnerships, CSRsupported initiatives, nurse-assisted and self-sampling programmes, district-level screening efforts, and focused outreach for underserved and high-risk communities. A large share of the women reached are those who, by circumstance or distance, may not otherwise have had access to screening. The achievement demonstrates that high-quality HPV DNA testing can be delivered at scale in India through technology-driven care pathways. The learnings and infrastructure developed through this program can support wider adoption of organised cervical cancer screening and contribute to India’s cervical cancer elimination efforts.
Cervical cancer remains one of the most preventable cancers. With timely screening, early detection, and appropriate follow-up care, most cervical cancer deaths can be avoided. Expanding access to high-quality screening remains one of the most powerful opportunities to improve women’s health outcomes in India.
