Dr Surendra S. Shastri says Yes. And can we say that Dr Shastri sounds like the dude? Why are we so enthu? The results of this Mumbai doctor’s 15-year-long clinical trials show that it is indeed possible to save the lives of lakhs of Indian women using a cheap, vinegar based screening test for cervical cancer.
Traditionally, when doctors find suspicious pap smears, they pour acetic acid onto the cervix before examining it under a stronger lens. Regular cells turn pink under the vinegar wash but cancer and pre-cancer cells turn white. Dr Shastri’s simple innovation (tested on thousands of subjects over 15 years) is to skip the expensive and intrusive pap smear altogether. His team trained health workers to do the acetic acid test themselves and use digital cameras to record the results for later examination. The results showed a reduction in the rate of cervical cancer deaths from 16.2 women per 100,000 to 11.1 women per 100,000 — a 31% reduction.
The Wall Street Journal points out that even though this low-cost test uses not quite the vinegar you have sitting on your kitchen shelf since 1999, it’s still great news for India — the country with the highest rate of cervical cancer deaths in the world and a dismal access to pap smears.
Forbes says that vinegar isn’t the only thing here and there are additional factors for the fantastic results of the trials. Factors like the health workers (trained by Dr Shastri and team) doing excellent documentation, record-keeping and ensuring the women whose tests showed potential cancer reach the doctors at the Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai. As we like to say around here, still.
Image credit: Vinegar by Sean.