Modified Cervicography and Visual Inspection With Acetic Acid as an Alternative Screening Method for Cervical Precancerous Lesions

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: We compared the diagnostic accuracy between visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) and modified cervicography as an alternative screening method for cervical precancerous lesions. METHODS: A diagnostic cross-sectional study was performed at the outpatient clinic at an Indonesian national referral hospital from February until April 2015. We collected samples from patients who sequentially underwent VIA examination, modified cervicography, and colposcopy. RESULTS: A total of 185 patients were included in this study. Modified cervicography showed positive results in 7.6% of patients, while 7.0% of patients had a VIA positive result. This is compared to 5.4% of patients showing abnormal colposcopy results. From those results, we obtained that sensitivity and specificity of VIA were 96.0% and 90.9%. Meanwhile, sensitivity and specificity of modified cervicography were 97.7% and 90.9%, respectively, compared to colposcopy as a gold standard. CONCLUSIONS: Modified cervicography and VIA are reliable tools for cervical cancer screening, with comparable sensitivity and specificity. Modified cervicography can be used as a supplementary tool to improve the documentation of VIA and as an alternative to VIA alone.