A study of visual inspection of cervix under acetic acid and visual inspection of cervix under Lugol's iodine for screening of carcinoma cervix

Background: Carcinoma cervix is the most common cancer among women in developing countries. The objectives of the study were to study the sensitivity and specificity of visual inspection of  the cervix with acetic acid (VIA) and Lugol's iodine (VILI) for cervical cancer screening. To study the correlation of demographic data like age, socioeconomic status, education residential area, parity, age at marriage in premalignant lesion of  the cervix.Methods: The present study was conducted in the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology  at a Tertiary Medical Care Center over a period of two years. Five hundred fifty women between 20-65 years of age who fulfilled the selection criteria were enrolled in our study. Positive tests for VIA was opaque aceto white lesion on applying 5% acetic acid or detection of definite yellow iodine non uptake areas with Lugol's iodine in the transformation zone or close to touching the squamocolumnar junction. Positive cases were scheduled for cervical biopsy. Ethical approval of the study protocol was obtained from the ethics committee of the institute.Results: On down staging 7.2% (40/550) of cases  had an unhealthy cervix and 0.36% (2/550) with a suspicious cervix. VIA positive in 4.55% (25/550), VILI positive in 2.73% (15/550). Biopsy was taken from positive with VIA and VILI. On histology 2.9% (16) were chronic cervicitis, CIN I had (1), 0.2%, CIN II (2) 0.4%, CIN III (4) 0.7% and squamous cell carcinoma (2) 0.4% VIA sensitivity 72.22%, specificity 97.74%. VILI sensitivity 100%, specificity 98.89%.Conclusions: VIA and VILI are simple, inexpensive, low resources technique. Both have high sensitivity and specificity.

A comparative study of cervical cancer screening methods in a rural community setting of North India.

CONTEXT: Pap smear testing as a conventional cervical screening approach has limitations for implementation and aided visual cervical testing has varying results in different regions. AIMS: The aim of this study is to demonstrate the performance of aided visual cervical screening tests as against conventional Pap smear testing in a rural community setting of North India. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: This was a rural community based cross‑sectional study. MATERIALS AND METHODS: All 7603 ever married women of age 30‑59 years surveyed in a pocket of Dadri Tehsil, Uttar Pradesh, India were targeted for screening by Pap, visual inspection of cervix using acetic acid (VIA) and visual inspection of cervix using Lugol’s iodine (VILI) methods. Screen positives were referred to colposcopy and confirmation by histology. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: Detection of histological cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) II + and CIN III + assessed separately by sensitivity, specificity and likelihood ratio’s and predictive values. Analysis of data was performed by using IBM SPSS statstics software version 16.0. RESULTS: A total of 65.6%(4988/7604) eligible women of 30‑59 years age group in the target population were screened. Out of 4988, further analysis was performed on 4148 after excluding those who did not complete all screenings, who lost to follow‑up and had missing histology results. Screen positivity rates by Pap (ASCUS and above), VIA and VILI were 2.6%, 9.7% and 13.5% respectively. Sensitivity and specificity of detecting the CIN III+ lesions were 87.5 and 98.8% for Pap, 50.0% and 96.7% for VIA and 50.0% and 95.7% for VILI respectively. CONCLUSIONS: VIA screening demonstrated as a feasible primary screening test for detecting high grade CIN and as to perform better when the Pap test is not feasible.

Visual inspection of cervix with Lugol's iodine for early detection of premalignant & malignant lesions of cervix.

Background & objectives: Majority of cases of cervical cancer are diagnosed at an advanced stage as cytology based screening programmes are ineffective in developing countries. The present study was done to look for carcinoma cervix and its precursors by visual inspection with Lugol's iodine (VILI), visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) and Papanicolaou smear, and to analyse their sensitivity, specificity and predictive values using colposcopic directed biopsy as reference. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 350 women were subjected to Pap smear, VIA, VILI and colposcopy. Cervical biopsy and endocervical curettage was taken from patients positive on any of these tests and in 10 per cent of negative cases. Results: The Pap smear was abnormal in 3.71 per cent, including (2.85%), low grade (LSIL) and (0.85%) high grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSIL). Thirteen per cent of the patients were found to be positive by VIA and 11.71 per cent were positive on VILI. Sensitivity for VIA, VILI and Pap smear was 89.5, 100 and 52.6 per cent, respectively, while the specificity for VIA, VILI and Pap smear was 91.2, 93.3 and 99.1 per cent, respectively. Interpretation & conclusions: In low resource settings, cervical cancer screening by Pap smear can be replaced by visual methods like VILI, which has the highest sensitivity (100%) to detect any grade of dysplasia, and a good specificity (93.3%).