GynaeCam - Inspection Device For Cervical Cancer Screening - A pilot study at Chennai.

Cervical cancer screening aids in detecting cancer prior to symptom manifestation in high risk women. It is carried out to identify and treat the cancer at the pre-cancerous stages eventually reducing the incidence and mortality of cervical cancer1 . Of the many screening procedures, cytology (Pap smear) is most commonly used. However, it is not feasible to perform cytology tests in remote locations in developing countries due to lack of infrastructure and trained manpower. The alternative procedures that could be employed in low resource settings are naked eye inspection after application of 3 – 5 % acetic acid (VIA), VIA using magnification devices (VIAM) and visual inspection after the application of Lugol’s iodine (VILI).  VIA test is a suitable alternative to Pap smear, but it has higher sensitivity and lower specificity than Pap smear2,5 resulting in unnecessary treatment and diagnostic procedures. The problem of lower specificity in VIA is addressed by the use of a colposcope. This additional step made the procedure expensive, time consuming and warranted the need for Gynaecologist. As an alternative, magnifying devices to aid VIA procedure were developed specifically for low resource settings. The use of Magnivisualizer is proposed as a triage to select women or dispense with colposcopy entirely6,7. Studies with the comparative performance of Magnivisualizer for VIAM and colposcope have found that it can be safely and accurately used in place of colposcopy without loss of efficacy of screening where colposcopy is not available for early diagnosis of precancerous and cancerous lesions of the cervix .