A new saliva test that can diagnose endometriosis in a few days should soon hit the market, and change the fate of thousands of sick women.
- Endometriosis affects 10% of women of childbearing age in France, ie 1.5 to 2.5 million women.
- It potentially concerns all menstruating women and can appear as early as adolescence.
“A revolution”. At a press conference organized this afternoon in Paris to present the new diagnostic tool developed by the French company Ziwig, women with endometriosis were all in agreement and doctors specializing in this gynecological disease were more than enthusiastic. .
98% reliable results
Concretely, the founders of Ziwig Yahya El Mir and Gilles Doumer have designed a saliva test that allows women to know quickly and simply if they have endometriosis. Just spit in a small plastic tube, close it and send it to the analysis laboratory, which will provide 98% reliable results in a few days.
What considerably reduce the diagnostic wandering of patients, which lasts, even today in France, 8 years on average. “This also makes it possible to avoid having to resort to examinations that are long to obtain and sometimes very invasive, such as ultrasounds, MRIs and laparoscopies”, welcomes Professor Philippe Descamps, obstetrician-gynecologist at the University Hospital of Angers and vice-president of the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO). “When women delay being diagnosed, they suffer unnecessarily and their endometriosis spreads, which makes the situation worse,” reminds the specialist.
Two advanced technologies
The study validating the new test, published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine, explains that the combination of two cutting-edge technologies (high-throughput sequencing and artificial intelligence) made it possible to more accurately identify microRNAs (miRNA) responsible for endometriotic lesions. “Micro-RNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs: unlike messenger RNAs (mRNAs, today used in several anti-COVID vaccines), they are not translated into proteins by the cellular machinery”, specify the test.
For the moment, the price of the saliva test and its date of placing on the market have not been revealed, but Yahya El Mir and Gilles Doumer are in the process of having it validated by the health authorities, so that it can be reimbursed. and marketed worldwide. Eventually, the entrepreneurs hope to be able to refine the skills of their innovation, so that it can, for example, identify whether the sick woman is potentially infertile or at what stage her endometriosis is.
“A fight that goes forward”
“There’s nothing worse than suffering without knowing what’s wrong with you, and being confronted with people who tell you that you’re okay, than having pain during your period, it’s is normal”, confides in conclusion the singer Imany, herself suffering from endometriosis. “This test can be done anywhere, even in the depths of Africa. Soon, there may be young girls who will go to their school nurse to complain about their pain, and they will take the test. They can then be treated as sick, and not as mentally ill”, rejoices the artist, ENDOmind ambassador. “Endometriosis is an extremely heavy fight, but it is advancing, millimeters by millimeters”, she concluded, beaming.
Endometriosis is characterized by the presence of fragments of a tissue similar to the endometrium (mucosa lining the inside of the uterus) outside the uterine cavity, at the level of different organs: genital apparatus, ovaries, rectum, bladder, intestines, lungs, etc. During menstruation, these tissue fragments react to hormonal stimulation and cause inflammation, which itself causes debilitating pain and a wide variety of symptoms (digestive disorders, urinary problems, fatigue, etc.).
Below, our program C Notre Santé: “My life with endometriosis”:
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