Mumbai:
A study by Mumbai's Tata Memorial Hospital and Cancer Research Centre has shown that a simple, cheap test using household vinegar can detect signs of cervical cancer in women, thereby prompting early treatment and cure.
The cancer in 60-year-old Manda Patil's cervix was detected by a simple swab test of household vinegar.
The vinegar was swabbed on her cervix by a trained health worker from the Tata Memorial hospital as part of a study.
Once dabbed with the vinegar, the abnormal cells in her cervix changed colour, and she was then sent to the hospital for treatment.
Ms Patil who lives in a Mumbai's Akurli Road slum and cleans people's homes for a living says the test has given her a new lease of life. With tears brimming in her eyes she says, "My life was saved. I would not have lived if it was not for the cancer camp."
"I did not have to spend a paisa", she says when asked about the costs.
Manda like thousands of other women is a direct beneficiary of a 14-year study by Tata Memorial Hospital involving over 150,000 women in Mumbai's slums.
They were divided into 2 groups. One group got cancer awareness education while the other half along with awareness, were also screened for cervical cancer by the vinegar test every two years over 14 years.
That vinegar could detect cervical cancer was known, but the study by Tata memorial is the first systematic one, with a large sample size. The results experts at Tata Memorial Hospital and Cancer research Centre say were astounding.
"We have found is that there is 31 per cent less chances of death from cervical cancer in the screening arm as a result of the vinegar test, says Dr Indraneel Mittra who began the study 14 years ago. "So this is a major finding as you are saving about one third of the women from dying from cervical cancer," he added.
But more than anything, vinegar is a cheap options for countries such India that has very high rates of cervical cancer.
Pap smears and tests for HPV, a virus that causes most cervical cancer cases, have slashed cases and deaths in the developed world. But poor countries like India cannot afford these expensive screening tests and that's where the cheap vinegar scores.
According to estimates while a Pap smear test costs $50, a vinegar test only costs around a dollar.
"The way forward is for the government, the state governments and the central government to implement this", adds Dr Mittra.