A simpler test for cervical cancer.

A miracle of evolution, the human immune system is not controlled by any central organ.... Rather it has developed to function as a kind of biologic democracy, wherein the individual members achieve their ends through an information network of awesome scope. the University of Zimbabwe in Harare have good news for women in developing nations. According to an article published in the 13 March 1999 issue of The Lancet, simply wiping the cervix with a solution of acetic acid (vinegar) and visually inspecting the area can reveal more than 75% of precancerous lesions in cervical tissue. The study was conducted by members of the Cervical Cancer Project of the JHPIEGO (pronounced "ja PIE go") Corporation, an affiliate of Johns Hopkins. During the test, the examiner swabs the cervix with vinegar and then inspects the area with the naked eye. The vinegar causes precancer-OuS tissue to appear as clearly visible white blotches. The study looked at nearly 11,000 African women between the ages of 25 and 55. The study had two parts. In the first part, nearly 9,000 women were examined by trained nurse-midwives at 15 clinics throughout Zimbabwe. The vinegar test and a standard Pap smear were administered at the same time and the results compared. If the vinegar test yielded an abnormal result, the woman underwent colposcopy (which uses a high-powered magnification device to examine the cervix) to confirm the results. In the second part, an additional 2,200 women received both the vinegar test and a Pap smear as well as colposcopy, regardless of whether their screening results were negative or positive. Because all the women in this phase received colposcopy, the JHPIEGO researchers felt the part two results were more valid than those from part one, and so they based their Lancet report on the second set of results. The part two women also received a human papillomavirus (HPV) screening to determine whether an HPV test would be a useful adjunct to the vinegar test. Nearly all cases of cervical cancer are caused by infection with HPV, which is one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases. (These findings will be published at a later date.) Among the part two women, who received both screening and colposcopy, the scientists found that the vinegar test correctly designated more women as having disease than the Pap smear did, identifying nearly 77% of abnormal results as compared to just over 44% …