If MacGyver was a nurse and needed to do a cervical cancer screening in the wilderness, this is the one he would use – visual inspection with acetic acid, or VIA*. I think he was more into wires and bomb diffusions, but whatever…

I had never heard about VIA in my sweet little nursing bubble until two years ago when I met some African nurses who were actually utilizing it to save their neighbors’ lives. I was amazed as they told me about their work, and I was shocked at how differently similar our clinical experiences were in comparison. According to Jhpiego, cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in females globally killing more than 250,000 women annually. This from a cancer that is largely, what we call, “controlled” in the U.S. 80% of the world’s cervical cancer burden occurs in developing countries where as many as 95% of women have never had a Pap test.

VIA is particularly useful in developing countries in which financial and technical constraints serve as tremendous barriers to screening. A healthcare professional or lay worker is trained to swab a female’s cervix with acetic acid, otherwise known as vinegar, and then view or photograph the cervix under a bright (halogen) light, looking for clearly defined white neoplasms, or abnormal cells, that appear as a result of the chemical reaction.Very cool. And to make it even cooler, there are now examples of VIA practiced in telemedicine as explained in this poster-love video.

*VIA is also known as cervicoscopy or direct visual inspection (DVI).