Smartphone-Based Visual Inspection with Acetic Acid: An Innovative Tool to Improve Cervical Cancer Screening in Low-Resource Setting

Jana Sami, Sophie Lemoupa Makajio, Emilien Jeannot, Bruno Kenfack, Roser Viñals, Pierre Vassilakos, Patrick Petignat
2022 Healthcare  
Visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) is recommended by the World Health Organization for primary cervical cancer screening or triage of human papillomavirus-positive women living in low-resource settings. Nonetheless, traditional VIA with the naked-eye is associated with large variabilities in the detection of pre-cancer and with a lack of quality control. Digital-VIA (D-VIA), using high definition cameras, allows magnification and zooming on transformation zones and suspicious cervical
more » ... ons, as well as simultaneously compare native and post-VIA images in real-time. We searched MEDLINE and LILACS between January 2015 and November 2021 for relevant studies conducted in low-resource settings using a smartphone device for D-VIA. The aim of this review was to provide an evaluation on available data for smartphone use in low-resource settings in the context of D-VIA-based cervical cancer screenings. The available results to date show that the quality of D-VIA images is satisfactory and enables CIN1/CIN2+ diagnosis, and that a smartphone is a promising tool for cervical cancer screening monitoring and for on- and off-site supervision, and training. The use of artificial intelligence algorithms could soon allow automated and accurate cervical lesion detection.
doi:10.3390/healthcare10020391 pmid:35207002 pmcid:PMC8871553 fatcat:3v4mir7sh5gkrg2kov4gcbysje