Study: Cheap Cervical Cancer Test Could Save Millions of Lives

A cheap method to detect cervical cancer using vinegar, cotton gauze and a bright light could save millions of women in the developing world, experts reported Friday.

The study, published in The Lancet medical journal, found a simple visual screening test to look for the early signs of cervical cancer reduced the numbers of cases by a quarter.

"This is a landmark study," said Dr. Harshad Sanghvi, medical director at JHPIEGO, an international health organization affiliated with Johns Hopkins University that has worked on preventing cervical cancer in poor countries. Sanghvi was unconnected to the Lancet study.

Previous research has shown visual screening is almost as effective in catching cancer as Pap smears, a more expensive technique used in the West, which involves scraping cells from the cervix to be examined under a microscope in a laboratory.

But other tests, like Pap smears or those to detect the human papillomavirus, or HPV, which can cause cervical cancer, are too expensive for poor countries to adopt. "The visual screening approach is within our grasp," Sanghvi said. "Visual inspection won't have as dramatic an impact as the sophisticated tests, but will have 70 percent of the impact for a minuscule cost."

Officials are already working on a cheaper version of the cervical cancer vaccine, which currently costs about $360 per dose, for the developing world. Together with stepped-up screening, doctors think that cervical cancer might one day be wiped out as a major health problem.

(http://www.foxnews.com / AP)