AFRICA – A new easy-to-use device for infant circumcision dubbed ShangRing has proved to be safe and could boost HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) prevention efforts in Africa, the highly-ranked Ivy League institution Cornell University announced on its site.
Weill Cornell Medicine , the biomedical research unit and medical school of Cornell University, said that the ShangRing is currently the only World Health Organization pre-qualified male circumcision device used in voluntary medical male circumcisions (VMMC) in Africa for males aged ten and up.
With seed funding from Weill Cornell Medicine and grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, Weill Cornell Medicine investigators launched a series of clinical trials of the ShangRing device in sub-Saharan Africa.
The novel circumcision device was subjected to an international randomized controlled clinical trial led by Weill Cornell Medicine physician-scientists comparing the ShangRing with the current gold standard circumcision device called the Mogen clamp in infants.
The device for circumcision was subjected to a large trial involving 1,420 healthy infants in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda who were randomized to be circumcised with either the ShangRing or the Mogen clamp.
Study co-investigator and corresponding author of this report, Dr. Philip Li, professor of research in urology and reproductive medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, discovered the ShangRing device, invented by Jian-Zhong Shang, during a trip to China over a decade ago.
The study found out that the circumcision device dubbed ShangRing, invented by Jian-Zhong Shang, could boost efforts to increase circumcision rates and prevent HIV in low-resource settings where early infant circumcision is not widespread.
Under the study, infants in both groups had similarly low rates of adverse events and post-surgical pain while ninety-seven percent of the infants’ parents or legal representatives reported they were happy with the procedure and its results.
The Weill Cornell Medicine scientists noted that the safety profile combined with high parent satisfaction makes ShangRing a device that could be used by healthcare systems and international organizations to scale up early infant male circumcision services in sub-Saharan Africa.
The ShangRing device uses two concentric plastic rings to sandwich the foreskin allowing a practitioner to cut away the excess skin with minimal bleeding and without stitches. In addition, the procedure can be performed under local anaesthesia and takes less than 5 minutes.
According to Weill Cornell Medicine Office of External Affairs, the trial which took place in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda found that the disposable circumcision device named ShangRing is as safe as the older tool as it eliminates the need for suturing.
The disposable ShangRing device will offer relief to countries with limited numbers of urologists and surgeons that rely heavily on nurses and medical officers to perform voluntary medical male circumcisions (VMMC) in Africa.
Weill Cornell Medicine physician-scientists revealed that the ShangRing device will further accelerate task-shifting from physicians to non-physicians as well as reduce the need for extensive surgical training.
In addition to having minimal training requirements, the disposable ShangRing device comes pre-sterilized, reducing the time, costs and resources needed for sterilizing reusable circumcision devices such as the Mogen clamp.
Weill Cornell Medicine further disclosed that the next steps for the team will be working to expand the implementation of using the ShangRing for voluntary medical male circumcisions in Africa.
“Voluntary male medical circumcision decreases the risk of HIV transmission by half to two-thirds. It also reduces the risk of transmitting other sexually transmitted diseases,” said senior author Dr. Richard Lee, urologist at Weill Cornell Medical Centre.
Dr. Richard Lee further said that early infant circumcision is simpler and has several other benefits over circumcising adolescent or adult men such as faster wound healing, no need to take time off of work, and fewer risks and complications.
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