Smear tests to check for abnormal cells that lead to cervical cancer are expensive and require specialist equipment. So doctors in India are trying a different method - vinegar swabs.
Cervical cancer used to kill more women in the United States than any other cancer. Today, deaths in the US are almost unheard of thanks to a decades-old test called a pap smear, which allows for early detection and treatment.
In India, however, tens of thousands of women still die each year from cervical cancer.
"It's just not possible for us to provide [the pap test] as frequently as it is done in the West," says Dr Surendra Shastri, a cancer specialist at Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai.
So how does the 'vinegar test' work?
About a dozen Muslim women in headscarves have come for the test. One is on the exam table, her long brown skirt pushed aside. With her friends sitting nearby, she looks calm and ready.
Dr Archana Saunke takes a cotton swab and applies a clear liquid to the woman's cervix.
"We wait for one minute, and we see if there is any yellowish patch," she explains.
If the liquid makes the normally pink cervix turn white or yellow, that means there are pre-cancerous cells - cells that could become cancer.
Within a minute or two, the doctor has good news for her patient.
"It's normal," Saunke says. The woman smiles broadly.
When tests yield bad news and show abnormal cells, these can be removed on the spot with a squirt of liquid nitrogen. No return trip is needed.
Waldo_Jeffers
United Kingdom
OLD SKOOL
DEC 06, 2012 02:22 PM