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Review
. 2022 Feb 18;10(2):391.
doi: 10.3390/healthcare10020391.

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

Jana Sami  1 , Sophie Lemoupa Makajio  1   2 , Emilien Jeannot  3   4 , Bruno Kenfack  5 , Roser Viñals  6 , Pierre Vassilakos  1   7 , Patrick Petignat  1
Affiliations
Review

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

Jana Sami et al. Healthcare (Basel). .

Abstract

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 regions, 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.

Keywords: VIA/VILI; artificial intelligence; cervical cancer screening; digital colposcopy; low and middle-income countries; smartphone-based; training.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

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Figure 1
Flowchart of articles selection.
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