It takes an average of seven years to find endometriosis. A British researcher and her team are working to create a method as fast as a pregnancy test.
People with endometriosis are usually diagnosed late. With her team, Dr. Barbara Guinn, a researcher in biomedical sciences at the University of Hull in England, has been working since 2018 on a test project with very rapid results, reports ETX Studio. The device would thus be similar to a pregnancy test, giving an almost instantaneous evaluation.
Dr. Guinn wants to design a test on the method of immunotherapy, by detecting a protein in the body that would indicate the presence of endometriosis. "We were awarded a doctoral scholarship fully funded by the University of Hull. Leah Cooksey, now in her third year of a doctorate and studying the impact of hypoxia on endometrial cells, joined my team", indicates the researcher to ETX Studio. Hypoxic is a lack of oxygen supply to body tissues. “We are now in the phase where we are trying to create a model of early hypoxia in the laboratory using a machine called a“ hypoxia chamber. ”We are using immortalized endometrial cells and subjecting them to very weak oxygen tensions.The uterus normally has an oxygen level of around 5% but as endometrial cells move to the abdomen, the oxygen tension drops to around 1%. We are investigating what effect this causes. new environment in the abdomen produced on the behavior of cells ", explains the specialist.
The diagnosis of endometriosis is often late
If Barbara Guinn's project should not see the light of day for a few years, it remains a hope for people with endometriosis. This disease is frequent, since it affects approximately 1 in 10 menstruating people in France and 150 million worldwide. Yet it is often diagnosed late. Even though patients report chronic pain and other symptoms of the disease for years, it takes an average of 7 years after the first signs appear for the verdict to fall. As a result, the disease is sometimes at a very advanced stage, requiring heavy operations for the patients. Not to mention that they live for years with crippling pain.
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