18-year-old Nikhiya Shamsher has become one of the youngest entrepreneurs in the world to have made a landmark achievement in the field of Cancer detection. She has invented a device decorate in the early detection of oral cancer.
“As it turns out, one of the biggest reasons for this [high mortality rate] is the late diagnosis,” the now-18-year-old who graduated from Greenwood High International School, Bengaluru was quoted saying in the Forbes India. Due to the late diagnosis, people not only go through a lot of physical stress but also a lot of emotional and financial stress.
When she was 14 years old, Nikhiya’s visit to a hospital’s pediatric ward as a part of a project called ‘Compassionate Clowns’ brought into light the high mortality rate that oral cancer had in India. This led her to start researching a potential cure or a detection mechanism.
The result of her research from when she was in class 9 gave birth to Quitpuff, a point of care diagnostic device that could help in the early detection of oral precancer and cancer. This device is a bottle with a reagent in it. The patient is expected to spit in it, and when it is heated, the biomarker changes colour in 15 minutes which can then be compared using a colour chart. It costs just ₹38 and is a cost-effective solution.
“It is a simple principle, it detects a biomarker present in the saliva, and changes colour. The more the biomarker, the darker the colour will be, which means the higher the risk of developing oral cancer,” she explains.
However, Quitpuff does not currently have the capability to detect cancer. It merely tells you whether or not you have the possibility of getting affected by oral cancer.