A novel concept for a liquid-core lightguide in cylindrical symmetry is presented. For a concrete 17 cm long device using water as a core and the transparent fluorinated polymer Teflon as a cladding layer, the coupling efficiency and guiding properties are investigated theoretically and compared with experimental results. The guide is found to exhibit low losses. A possible application of this type of guide is investigated by replacing the optical cell of a standard UV/VIS spectrometer by the cylindrical liquid-core waveguide. An increasing sensitivity for especially low concentrations of a polluting dye by a factor of about 15 is observed. Concentrations as low as a few parts per billion of the pollutant can be detected with a good signal-to-noise ratio.