Vinegar Now Being Used to Detect Cervical Cancer http://www.femalenetwork.com/health-wellness/vinegar-now-being-used-to-detect-cervical-cancerEvery year, more than 200,000 women die from cervical cancer, and 85 percent of these come from developing countries. After all, for women struggling to feed their family, it can be difficult to justify the expense of annual pap smears.
However, a new method developed by the experts at the John Hopkins Medical School has given women all over the world new hope. Ordinary table vinegar (5 percent acetic acid) can now be used to detect precancerous lesions in the cervix.
According to Dr. Ricky Lu, a cervical cancer prevention expert who works with the organization Jhpiego, a global health affiliate of Johns Hopkins University, vinegar makes the lesions obvious even to the naked eye. "Even with people who are medically untrained, it's not difficult to see," he said.
But how exactly does the vinegar help you detect cervical cancer?
It’s simple, really. All nurses have to do is to brush the vinegar directly onto the cervix. In just a few minutes, the solution turns the lesions white, and they can then be frozen off. According to a report by Donald G. McNeil Jr. in the New York Times, the vinegar test, also known as VIA/cryo (short for visualization of the cervix with acetic acid and treatment with cryotherapy) has the "potential to do for poor countries what the Pap smear did for rich ones: end cervical cancer's reign as the number one cancer killer of women."
In Thailand, Dr. Bandit Chumworathayi, a gynecologist at Khon Kaen University who was involved in the first run of the vinegar study in the country, believes the method to be very effective. In his interview with McNeil, he explained that "vinegar highlights the tumors because they have more DNA, and thus more protein and less water, than other tissue." Apparently, as a treatment, freezing is about 90 percent effective, and there are next to no side effects. In fact, 29 out of 75 provinces in the country have already adopted the vinegar test.
While the pre-tumors are detected more accurately with vinegar than with a regular pap smear, the method isn’t foolproof just yet. False positives are not uncommon. There are spots that turn white but turn out to be benign. Still, the discovery of the use of vinegar has revolutionized healthcare for women.
At the moment, the screening test is already being used in pilot projects located in more than 20 countries worldwide.
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