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We urgently need new approaches to identify endometriosis, say experts
Endometriosis affects more than 190 million women and girls globally
We urgently need new approaches to identify endometriosis, experts have said, following NIH’s announcement of a US$3m prize competition to modernise the diagnosis of the disease.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is offering up to US$3m in cash prizes to accelerate the development of technologies to improve endometriosis diagnosis.
The initiative, which seeks to shorten the time to diagnosis and eliminate the invasiveness of current techniques, has been applauded by women’s health experts who said endometriosis patients had been neglected for too long.
“There has been a lack of high-quality research and innovation in women’s healthcare for far too long, and endometriosis is one area that deserves its moment in the sun,” Dr Jillian LoPiano, OB/GYN and chief health officer at Wisp, told Femtech World.
“Because of this lack of quality data women are often under or misdiagnosed and left with little options for relief. The NIH’s work to accelerate the development of non-invasive technologies is certainly a step in the right direction, providing women with better care options for endometriosis.”
Dr Janet Choi, chief medical officer at Progyny, said: “We urgently need new non-invasive approaches to identify this debilitating condition more quickly and accurately.
“Initiatives like the NIH’s US$3m prize competition are crucial to driving the innovation necessary to transform endometriosis diagnosis and improve the lives of patients around the world.”
Endometriosis occurs when tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows in other places in the body. These patches, also called lesions, can bleed like what typically occurs during menstruation.
Currently, the only way to confirm an endometriosis diagnosis is through laparoscopic surgery, which is invasive and is not widely accessible.
Dr Shazia Malik, a consultant OB/GYN and UK medical director at Daye, said innovative diagnostic technologies, such as non-invasive saliva or vaginal microbiome tests, as well as AI-driven clinical algorithms that match the patient’s symptoms to a diagnosis, have the potential to “drastically” reduce diagnosis times and improve the standard of care.
“Non-invasive diagnostic technologies would not only reduce the physical and emotional burden on patients but also lower healthcare costs and improve access to care,” she explained.
“Such innovations not only promise to transform patient care but also highlight the importance of addressing the gender research gap in healthcare. Innovation in this field is essential to address the unmet needs of millions suffering from this debilitating condition.”
Shannon Cohn, endometriosis advocate and director and producer of the award-winning documentary Below the Belt, said: “Endometriosis is arguably the most common, devastating disease that most people have never heard of. Virtually every person knows and loves someone with endometriosis, yet the average diagnostic delay is eight to 10 years.
“The disease has been historically under-recognised among both the medical community and the public, and subsequently both under- and mis-diagnosed. This delay often increases symptom severity, infertility rates and the personal and societal impact of the disease.”
The total US endometriosis economic burden is estimated to be as high as US$78–119bn annually in lost wages, lost productivity and associated medical costs. However, Cohn thinks with increased funding directed towards research, not only earlier diagnosis and targeted treatments will be achievable, but ultimately prevention and a cure.
“Endometriosis represents a perfect awful storm of so many things – stigma and menstrual taboo, gender bias, racial bias, financial barriers to good healthcare and so much more.
“It’s critically important that our healthcare leaders focus squarely on accelerating research and innovation into this devastating condition.”
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An early PET scan after one cycle of chemotherapy may help predict how aggressive breast cancer responds to treatment, a study suggests.
Research led by The Institute of Cancer Research, London and King’s College London suggests that an early scan taken after one cycle of chemotherapy could help predict how well a patient’s cancer will respond to treatment.
The study focused on patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), an aggressive form of the disease in which cancer cells lack receptors for the hormones oestrogen and progesterone, as well as the HER2 protein.
Patients with TNBC are usually treated with chemotherapy prior to surgery. While many respond well, residual disease at surgery, typically around six months later, is associated with a significantly poorer prognosis. Identifying people sooner who are unlikely to respond remains a major clinical challenge.
The research explored whether using PET imaging shortly after treatment begins, rather than relying only on MRI scans later in the treatment process, could provide earlier insight into how a patient’s cancer is responding. Twenty-two patients were recruited, with fourteen undergoing FDG-PET scans before treatment and after the first cycle of chemotherapy.
The findings, published in Clinical Cancer Research, showed that changes seen on PET scans after just one cycle of chemotherapy were strongly associated with subsequent response, including whether there was no detectable cancer, known as a complete response, by the end of treatment. Importantly, early PET response showed stronger associations with treatment outcomes than standard mid-treatment MRI scans in this study.
Being able to identify patients who are not responding well at an early stage could allow clinicians to adjust treatment sooner or consider alternative approaches. These findings may also support future strategies to better tailor treatment intensity to individual patients.
The study also compared two types of PET tracers, FDG and FLT, to determine which was most suitable. While both met the study’s technical criteria, FDG-PET was selected for further evaluation due to its better image quality, greater consistency and wider use in clinical practice.
The research also explored how imaging changes after just one cycle of chemotherapy relate to the body’s immune response to treatment. Biopsies taken before and after the first cycle of chemotherapy showed that an increase in immune cells within the tumour was strongly associated with both early PET changes and improved treatment outcomes.
The researchers emphasise that these findings now need to be validated in larger studies. Future work will aim to confirm these results in broader patient groups and explore more accessible imaging approaches, such as ultrasound, alongside PET and MRI.
Sheeba Irshad, professor of cancer immunology at King’s College London and lead of the Breast Cancer Now KCL Research Unit, said:
“In patients who had PET scans both before treatment and after the first cycle, we found that this early scan could predict whether they were likely to achieve a complete response by the end of treatment. These findings highlight the potential of early imaging to guide treatment decisions, and now need to be validated in larger, modern clinical trials.”
Andrew Tutt, professor of breast oncology at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, said:
“Research that helps us determine early who is already benefitting from standard neoadjuvant chemotherapy and who might benefit from clinical trials to find better treatments is vital. This study shows that FDG-PET may have great value in this regard. We hope to be able to design studies that further investigate and validate these findings.”
The study was supported by funding from King’s College London and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, Breast Cancer Now, Cancer Research UK, and Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity.
We are excited unveil the three finalists competing for one of the Femtech World Awards’ most coveted honours: the Startup of the Year Award, sponsored by Future Fertility.
This award celebrates an early-stage company making a bold impact in women’s health through innovation, vision and execution.
The winner will be announced at our virtual ceremony on 19 June, with the decision made by a representative from category sponsor Future Fertility.
Congratulations to the shortlist and thank you to everyone who entered or nominated.
Startup of the Year Shortlist
Hello Inside is the first women’s health AI company to turn daily metabolic signals into outcomes women feel and healthcare systems reimburse.
Women’s health has long been under-researched, and current AI benchmarks fail on women’s health questions roughly sixty percent of the time.
Hello Inside built the architecture to close that gap.
Across four years and 12,000+ validated metabolic profiles, three in four women improve at least one symptom within ninety days.
They lose four kilograms in three months, moving from overweight into the healthy range. In a clinical study with Alisa Vitti’s Flo Living, 91.9 per cent reduced PMS burden within sixty days.
U-Ploid is an early-stage biotechnology company tackling one of the most fundamental challenges in fertility care: the sharp, age-related decline in egg quality that limits outcomes across IVF and egg freezing.
While much of the field focuses on improving assessment and selection, U-Ploid is developing a first-in-class therapeutic approach designed to improve egg quality itself by addressing the biological causes of age-related chromosomal errors.
Supported by strong preclinical evidence and now advancing into human studies, U-Ploid combines scientific rigour, regulatory discipline and long-term vision to help redefine what is possible in fertility care.
Gestational diabetes is a strong risk factor for future type 2 diabetes, even in women with normal pre-pregnancy weight, according to a study at the University of Gothenburg.
The researchers call for earlier testing and better follow-up.
“Our results show that gestational diabetes functions as a kind of stress test for the body’s ability to manage blood sugar, and identifies women with a greatly increased risk of future type 2 diabetes”, said Jon Edqvist, PhD and affiliated to research at the University of Gothenburg, and operating room nurse at Sahlgrenska University Hospital.
Gestational diabetes is a special type of diabetes that can affect pregnant women.
The condition is defined as elevated blood sugar levels, without previously known diabetes. Treatment involves self-monitoring of blood sugar, advice on lifestyle habits and, if necessary, medication.
Identifying gestational diabetes is important because the disease increases the risk of complications such as preeclampsia, the need for a cesarean section and high birth weight for the baby.
Those who have had gestational diabetes are also at higher risk of later developing type 2 diabetes.
In the current study, published in eClinicalMedicine, researchers now show that gestational diabetes is a strong indicator of future risk of developing type 2 diabetes, even in women with normal weight before pregnancy.
Elevated risk even with normal weight
The study is based on data from the Medical Birth Registry on just over 1.15 million first-time mothers in Sweden, who gave birth between 1987 and 2019. 16,870 women with confirmed gestational diabetes were compared with age-matched women without the diagnosis. The median follow-up period was nine years.
The results show that women with a BMI of 35 and above, i.e. severe obesity, had an almost tenfold increased risk of developing gestational diabetes compared to women with normal weight.
The risk of subsequent type 2 diabetes also increased with higher BMI, but it was significantly increased even with normal weight, which the researchers describe as particularly worrying.
More follow-up and more studies
The researchers behind the study welcome the recently updated recommendations on gestational diabetes in Sweden, where a higher proportion of pregnant women at increased risk are expected to be offered testing earlier in pregnancy, and if necessary, interventions.
“Diagnostics and care of gestational diabetes have looked very different in different parts of the country,” said Annika Rosengren, professor at the University of Gothenburg.
“There is a need for both improved follow-up after gestational diabetes, and more studies that investigate how such follow-up affects future health and prognosis”
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