New test could cut cervical cancer deaths by 50 per cent

04 April 2009

Hailed as ''from India to the world - a better way to prevent cancer'', doctors including experts from Mumbai's Tata Memorial Hospital prove that a new testing method called HPV, cuts cervial cancer deaths by half. Jagdeep Worah reports

A team of doctors including experts from Mumbai's Tata Memorial Hospital have demonstrated that a new method of screening and testing for cervical cancer, called the HPV or human papilloma virus test, is far more effective than earlier methods, and has the potential to cut deaths from the tumour by half.

A 10-year study involving 130,000 women in Osmanabad district showed that only 34 of the women who received HPV testing died of cervical cancer, against 54 who received the standard Pap smear test. This is the test that is currently used across the world.

Further, 56 women examined using the acetic acid method died, while 64 women who got no screening at all died of the disease. The mild acid test is widely used in India as it is cheap, but it requires visual screening by the doctor, and is thus limited in its accuracy.

In addition, the women who received the HPV test were found to have far fewer cases of advanced cervical cancer.

A Pap smear is a scraping of the cervix which is then examined for irregular cells that could be developing into a tumour. The acetic acid test is used to directly look at the cervix for potentially cancerous cells, while the HPV test looks for the virus in cells taken from the cervix.

The study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday. In an editorial, the journal hailed the research as ''from India to the world - a better way to prevent cancer''.