A team of doctors speaking at a cancer conference in Chicago this past Sunday detailed how a low-tech vinegar cancer test had successfully been used to save the lives of thousands of women in India.
They say that, as several reports indicate, cervical cancer is presently the form of cancer that kills the most women in this country.
. This vinegar cancer test is said to allow doctors to diagnose women while the cancer is still in its incipient stage.
This means that the women can receive appropriate treatment in time, and therefore have better chances of making a full recovery.
Daily Mail reports that, since this vinegar cancer test first started being used to diagnose cervical cancer in women in India, death rates linked to this condition have dropped by a third.
Since the test is fairly low-tech, it is especially suitable for use in poor countries where doctors lack both the laboratory equipment and sometimes even the training needed in order to carry out “fancier” cancer diagnosis procedures.
The doctors speaking at said conference explain that this test comes down to swabbing a woman's cervix with diluted vinegar.
When exposed to the diluted vinegar, abnormal cells found inside the woman's body change their color, thus allowing specialist to identify them and decide on a course of treatment.
Should the vinegar cancer test become a run-off-the-mill medical procedure, a whopping 22,000 yearly deaths linked to cervical cancer could be prevented in India alone.
On a global scale, the test is expected to save the lives of 72,600 women each year.
“That's amazing. That's remarkable. It's a very exciting result,” stated the study's main sponsor, Dr. Ted Trimble of the National Cancer Institute in the United States.
Given the outcome of this trial run for the vinegar cancer test, officials in India are now reportedly looking into the possibility of expanding this procedure to a wider population than those 75,360 women that were enrolled in this study.
