How to detect cervical cancer cheaply

In poor countries, women can't afford a pap smear which requires high-tech and expensive equipment and trained personnel that many clinics in these countries lack. This is why deaths by cervical cancer is higher in poor countries than in countries like America. But have no fear, a cheap solution has come underway. It is already being done in countries such as Thailand, India and Botswana.

Developed by the John Hopkins medical school, the colposcopy involves using a common household item - vinegar - to detect precancerous cells on the cervix. How ingenious is that? In this procedure, all you need is a nurse, some vinegar and some simple equipment. No laboratory tests are required and precancerous cells that are detected can be removed in a subsequent procedure called cryotherapy, all during the same appointment.

So how does it work? Firstly, the vinegar is applied on to the woman's cervix using a swab. The doctor, nurse of midwife then looks for whitish or yellowish spots on the cervix using a colposcope, a lighted binocular microscope. Some may even use a magnifying glass. These white tissues are abnormal cervical tissues and are potentially cancerous lesions that need to be removed. If there are no white or yellow spots then the patient is free from precancerous cells and the appointment is over.

As for the patients with whitish tissue, the health care personnel then carries out cryoptherapy which involves freezing these white tissues with carbon dioxide, nitrogen or nitrous oxide. Then the frozen layer can then be removed. The woman may feel a bit of pain during this procedure. However, this momentary pain is well worth to prevent the development of cervical cancer which can be a painful and undesirable death.

I found this procedure interesting because something as common as acetic acid in vinegar can be used to detect and thus prevent a potentially life-threatening disease. These sort of innovative and inexpensive procedures are what lower income countries need to improve the people's health. I would like to see a decline in the number of deaths from cervical cancer which is about 250,000 annually, of which about 85% are from low or middle-income countries.I think the hardworking health care personnel and the experts who developed this procedure deserve a big thank you from everyone.

Cheers
zhusun

Further reading:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/health/27cancer.html?_r=0
http://womenshealth.about.com/cs/cevicalconditions/a/colposcopy.htm
http://womenshealth.about.com/cs/surgery/a/cryosurgtherapy.htm
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/09/18/161264247/botswana-doctors-stop-cervical-cancer-with-a-vinegar-swab
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20595131