Team:NUS Singapore/HP/Silver
Human Practices
Survey
Silver
Introduction
In Singapore, a nation-state with a population of 5.5 million, 37 people are diagnosed with cancer every day. It is estimated that in 2015, over 13,000 people were diagnosed with cancer, and this number has been increasing since 2010 (Raymond et al., 2016). Singapore’s Ministry of Health often issues guidelines and support tips on how to combat or deal with the illness, in terms of finance, family and overall psychological well-being.
The standard method by which doctors determine the specific kind of cancer present in a patient, is via a biopsy - the removal of tissue from any part of the body in order to examine it for the presence of cancer cells. Biopsies tend to be highly invasive and lengthy, and may also may result in complications. Current methods of non-invasive biopsies are now being pursued; an example would be the European project LiqBiopSens that is developing a liquid biopsy technology for the early detection of colorectal cancer (Williams & Segal, 2016).
Our Project: The RIOT System
The RIOT System provides an incentive of having a reduced cost and potentially provides better efficiency in cancer diagnosis and treatment, particularly in lesser developed countries where facilities and medical technologies are limited or not present at all. The system is suitable as a diagnostic tool and its financial sustainability and easy mobility allows it to work well as a business, as outlined in our business plan. This gives it the capacity to perhaps reach out to these lesser developed parts of the world in the future.
However, we anticipated that the public might be averse toward using bacteria as a diagnostic or therapeutic tool, due to its role in disease. It may not appear natural to many people to inject bacteria as a means toward curing an illness, rather than causing it. Therefore, the team believes that it is important to explore the Human Practices with regard to public perception of such a system. We wanted to further understand what the public’s views are in Singapore, beyond the knee-jerk aversion, and how we would change their point of view to accept such a tool, which will potentially be a faster and an equally reliable indicator of cancer.
As laws regarding the use of such bacteria-based tools are not spelt out in detail, an official opinion about this has not been established. As such, we wanted to ask how participants would react to such a medical procedure, what their concerns would be and how we could potentially address those concerns.
We carefully crafted a questionnaire which tackled several aspects of introducing a new medical procedure. This survey was distributed online to various age groups in Singapore to assess and thoroughly investigate the public receptivity to bacterial cancer diagnosis and therapy. Questions were asked on how participants felt about such procedures in general, and they went on to identify their perceived safety level of this new tool. The most commonly listed medical risks were also extracted from the survey results.
The pilot survey, with 163 contributors, revealed that there was receptivity to the bacterial detection system, as opposed to our initial hypothesis and worries. This was promising in the continuation of the Human Practices, as it showed that there is a potential demand for the system. However, the questions also established that the public had concerns about its safety, and it became an issue we needed to tackle. We also carried out this survey in two other countries in the Asia-Pacific region, and these surveys will be discussed after the following pages.
The two key points obtained from the survey administered in Singapore are as follows:
In the above figure, 93 out of 163 participants (57.1%) of people fall within the 4-to-5 range of receptiveness. This shows that the majority are potentially be receptive to the RIOT System as a commercial medical procedure. Unlike our initial fears, it appears the majority would not reject the system out-of-hand.
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