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Visual inspection with acetic acid for cervical cancer screening outside of low-resource settings
Jose Jeronimo1, Orlando Morales, Jorge Horna
1Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, Maryland, USA. guibovij@mail.nih.gov
Objectives:
To assess visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) as a screening tool for use in a well-equipped health center in Peru, to evaluate VIA as an alternative or adjunct to the Papanicolaou (Pap) smear, and to determine if VIA can play a role in settings other than low-resource ones.
Methods:
This was a prospective study of 1 921 asymptomatic women living in Lima, Peru, carried out in 1999 and 2000. The study was performed at a cancer center equipped with the latest-generation technology and highly trained oncologists. The women underwent a complete clinical evaluation, including a Pap smear and VIA. Participants with any positive test were referred for colposcopy and biopsy.
Results:
More women tested positive by VIA than on the Pap smear (6.9% vs. 4.2%; P = 0.0001). There were 35 women with histologic cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 1 (CIN 1); of these, 15 were detected by Pap and 20 by VIA (P = 0.4). A diagnosis of CIN 2 or 3 (CIN 2-3) was confirmed in a total of 13 cases; Pap detected 5 of the cases and VIA 11 of the cases (P = 0.06). The positive predictive value for detection of CIN 2+ was 8.3% for VIA and 6.3% for Pap (P = 0.5). Most importantly, while only 2.3% of patients with a positive VIA were lost to follow-up before colposcopy, that was true for 26.3% of the women with a positive Pap smear (P < 0.0001).
Conclusions:
VIA is useful for detection of precursor lesions of cervical cancer not only in low-resource settings but also in well-equipped health centers and cancer centers. In these non-low-resource settings, VIA has a positive predictive value comparable to the conventional Pap smear, but it is more likely to achieve earlier diagnosis, follow-up, and treatment than cytology-based screening.
