Australian scientists make world-first endometriosis treatment breakthrough
A team of Australian researchers has become the first in the world to grow tissue from every known type of endometriosis, in a move that could pave the way for new research into more effective treatments and diagnoses.
Researchers from the Royal Hospital for Women, Sydney will be able to test treatments and match patients’ symptoms with specific proteins, after successfully growing 30 different lab-grown tissues taken during surgery.
The advancement will not only allow scientists to vary treatments from different types of endometriosis, but it will also help them determine whether a woman will need fertility treatment in the future.
Endometriosis is a common disease where tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows outside it in other parts of the body.
According to Endometriosis Australia, more than 830,000 of Australian girls and women live with endometriosis at some point in their life, with the disease often starting in teenagers. However, symptoms can vary dramatically between patients.
The charity estimates the illness costs the country AUS$9.7bn per year, with AUS$2.5bn coming in direct healthcare costs, and the rest in lost productivity.
Professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at Sydney Royal Hospital for Women, Jason Abbott, said collecting the cells in one place for the first time would allow researchers to accurately diagnose patients, potentially limiting the need for invasive and painful surgeries.
“Very much like we thought breast cancer, 30 years ago, was one disease and treated in one way, we now understand that [endometriosis] is much more complex than that,” he told Brisbane Times.
“All those different types of endometriosis really probably reflect different diseases … and that [can determine] their response to treatment, clinical symptoms and also things like infertility.”
The development, Abbott said, would help fast-track new treatments by enabling researchers to test new and existing drugs on the lab tissues rather than in humans.
“It’ll mean that we’ll be offering new treatments just around the corner,” he added.
Endometriosis has often been referred to as the ‘missed disease’ due to its unclear aetiology and inconsistencies in its diagnosis and management.
Unlike other long-term conditions such as diabetes and asthma, reports suggest endometriosis has remained largely ignored in government policy and research funding globally.
A 2021 study concluded that while social science and feminist research has drawn attention to the historical absences around endometriosis and the exclusion of women’s accounts, more empirical work which explores the active construction of ignorance around endometriosis in contemporary healthcare and policy contexts is urgently needed.
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