Ms. Nie has spent her life as a farmer in China’s Sichuan province. Working on the farm isn’t easy, filling her day from dawn until dusk. With little free time, going for routine health checks fell down her priority list. Even something as serious as cancer screening.

“I used to think it was just a ‘women’s issue’ and felt embarrassed to see a doctor,” she says.

During a community screening, an AI-supported examination of Ms. Nie found high-risk precancerous lesions. She was referred to a doctor and treated quickly. While the outcome was positive, Ms. Nie admits the experience changed her. She adopted a healthier lifestyle and started encouraging every woman she knew to get checked.

Ms. Nie’s story is common all over the world. Cervical cancer, often caused by HPV, is almost entirely preventable if detected early. Yet it remains the fourth most common cancer in women globally, with around 660,000 new cases and 350,000 deaths in 2022 – 94 percent of them in low- and middle-income countries.

The disease persists not because it’s unstoppable, but because the pathway between screening, diagnosis, and treatment is fragmented.

Closing the gap between screening and care

In many clinics in underserved communities, one doctor may handle screening, diagnosis and follow up, with limited time and support. Records can get buried. Often, those least likely to come forward, even when services are free, are those most at risk.

Closing that gap became the priority for Tencent’s Breast and Cervical Cancers Prevention Project, which is now in its third year. It’s working to make care feel like one continuous journey. At its center is a Screening–Diagnosis–Treatment Integration Platform that links each stage in a coordinated pathway.

Women can access their screening records and results promptly via Weixin, while doctors spend less time on paperwork and have more time with patients.

Supporting doctors, extending expertise

Frontline doctors in low-resource areas carry most of the diagnostic responsibility, often without specialist backup. Through Tencent’s AI-assisted colposcopy diagnostic system—developed by its Miying medical AI team and currently in clinical pilot programs—doctors receive real-time support during examinations.

As images are captured, results appear within seconds, highlighting what may need closer attention. It offers a second clinical perspective, helping doctors check, confirm, and act with greater confidence.

Alongside this, the Intelligent Digital Training Platform developed with leading health institutions enables doctors to learn from real cases and simulations. The aim is to extend expertise, not replace it—bringing more consistent care to places where specialist knowledge is hardest to access.

Technology alone is not enough. On the ground, community health workers play an equally critical role. In Sichuan’s Shimian County, Dr. Bai Fuxiang raised screening participation from under 20 percent to over 70 percent through home visits, local dialect communication, and sharing real stories of women who had been treated successfully.

Results that travel

One crucial shift is happening after screening. Women who need further care are now identified and reminded, helping ensure next steps happen and creating more chances to act early.

More than 700,000 women had received care through the project by the end of 2025. Follow-up completion rates have risen from 64 percent to nearly 85 percent since the platform was introduced. Duplicate screening has dropped by more than 98 percent, freeing resources to reach unscreened women. Detection of high-grade precancerous lesions has nearly doubled.

In many parts of the world, these challenges will feel familiar. The WHO’s targets—90 percent vaccination, 70 percent screening, 90 percent treatment—depend not just on services existing, but on whether people can move through them without losing their way. Progress often comes from making care easier to follow, especially in places where resources are limited.

As Gao Chen, Project Lead, puts it: “We’re not just building tools—we’re trying to make care easier to reach, understand, and continue.”

The hardest women to reach are still out there. But when the pathway holds together—and the people along it are supported—more are reached before it’s too late.