here is the date from which this promising saliva test for detecting the disease will be reimbursed

This Thursday, March 7, 2024, Catherine Vautrin, the Minister of Health, announced the government’s intention to make a saliva test available to women, reimbursed by Social Security which serves to detect endometriosis. A test which should concern between 10,000 and 20,000 women according to the minister. The government’s plan is for this saliva test to be reimbursed by Social Security by the year 2025.

“We should, from 2025, be able to have women start with this test,” indicated Catherine Vautrin on France 2. A test which today costs approximately 1,000 euros. But before this test is reimbursed, it is still necessary “a final validation from the High Authority of Health”. And for good reason, this promising test is quite recent. It is the fruit of the work of the Lyon biotech company Ziwig. Called the Endotest, this test “showed very good diagnostic performance”, according to the High Health Authority (HAS).

Endometriosis: a complicated diagnosis

To be reimbursed by Social Security, the High Health Authority wants to ensure its effectiveness and clinical usefulness. Currently, the test is considered 95% reliable. He is therefore judged “promising” And “innovative” by HAS. But the public authority emphasizes “the need to carry out additional studies aimed at evaluating its clinical usefulness in current practice”. Catherine Vautrin explains that an experiment must still take place on 3,000 women.

As a reminder, endometriosis is a chronic disease that affects approximately one in ten women. The symptoms of this disease are usually severe pain during periods And fertility disorders. But the diagnosis of this disease is complicated and most of the time it occurs by chance. According to the Ministry of Health, the diagnosis of endometriosis comes with an average delay of seven years.

Is this enough to help women with this disease?

This saliva test should therefore improve the diagnosis of this disease. Although this is a priori good news, it is far from enough for the ENDOmind association. Indeed, the association is delighted to “the desire to be able to allow French women to benefit from this French innovation through reimbursement of the test”. But judge all the same “dramatically undervalued” the number of tests that will be made available, namely “3,000 tests reimbursed in 2024 and 10 to 20,000 tests in 2025”.

“The test must be made accessible to all people who need it, particularly those in medical deserts and without access to imaging”, pleads the association in a press release. The Minister of Health announced that an information campaign would be carried out in order to “get out of the taboo and fight against stereotypes”.

Passionate about women’s news, Agathe has been deciphering the latest trends for aufeminin since 2022. Her favorite areas? Psychology, nutrition and well-being advice, without forgetting the tips…