This simple visual screening test, which looks for the early signs of cervical cancer, has reduced the numbers of cases by almost 25%.
Cervical cancer is a malignant cancer of the cervix. It may present with vaginal bleeding but symptoms may be absent until the cancer is in its advanced stages, which has made cervical cancer the focus of intense screening efforts using the Pap smear.
However, the cancer, which is the second-most common cancer in women, is largely preventable if detected on time. The test is easily performed by a nurse or trained health care worker, where a woman's cervix is washed with vinegar and gauze using a speculum to hold it open.
The nurse can look for any pre-cancerous lesions after one minute as they turn very white and can be seen with the naked eye under a halogen lamp. The test was reportedly performed among a group of 49,311 women in Dindigul district in Tamil Nadu, India from 2000 to 2003 between 30 and 59 years old.
The tested women were tracked from 2000 to 2006 and officials reported 167 cases and 83 cervical cancer deaths in the women who received the screening, compared with 158 cases and 92 deaths in those who didn't.
The research was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The results of the test were published in The Lancet. Earlier, researchers have concluded that this visual screening technique is almost as effective in catching cancer as pap smears.
However, the test still has many limitations as it is capable of producing many false positives and cannot be used in post-menopausal women or in women who have had more than two or three children. Women with more than three children tend to develop pre-cancerous lesions in parts of the cervix that are not normally visible.
