Accuracy of Visual Inspection of Cervix with 5% Acetic Acid (VIA) in the Diagnosis of Cervical Cancer

Fatima Haroon; Natasha Bushra; Tayyiba Wasim

Fatima Haroon Woman Medical Officer, Services Hospital Lahore
Natasha Bushra Senior Registrar, Services Hospital Lahore
Tayyiba Wasim Professor of Gynaecology, Services Hospital Lahore

Keywords: Cervical cancer, VIA

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the accuracy of Visual inspection of cervix with 5% acetic acid (VIA) in the diagnosis of cervical cancer.

Place and Duration: It was a cross sectional study conducted Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Unit-III, Out Patient Department, SIMS/Services Hospital, Lahore, Pakistan. over a period of six months from 06-02-2017 to 05-08-2017.

Methodology: A total of 250 cases of VIA were included in this study. The VIA test was performed by adding 5ml of acetic acid in 95ml of water to form 5% acetic acid in a kidney dish. If VIA positive, cervical biopsy will be done under local anesthesia and ask the patient to follow up with report of histopathology.

Results: Comparison of VIA vs histopathology in the detection of cervical cancer shows 250 positive cases seen on VIA while 167 positive and 83 negative cases were seen on histopathology. Positive predictive value of VIA was 78.3%.

Conclusion: VIA has a role in screening program of cancer cervix in low resource countries like Pakistan and may become an alternative screening tool as it is simple, easy, rapid to administer, does not need much instructions, cost effective and its results are available immediately.