What if we diagnosed endometriosis earlier? This disease which affects 10% of women in France and where what is called “diagnostic wandering” sometimes reaches 10 years, 10 years punctuated by sometimes disabling pain.
All that could soon change, thanks to a public-private partnership. A French company presents a saliva test with a response in just ten days, which has been approved by public hospitals and patient associations. Among them, the association ENDOmind, supported by the singer Imany. The artist was taken with pain from her adolescence, she waited 8 years before knowing that she had endometriosis.
“It’s not fair to let 4 million French women suffer in these conditions and give them Spasfon by considering their pain as normal. It shows that we are not concerned about the suffering of women.”
Imany, singerat franceinfo
“Here we are talking about reducing this suffering from eight to ten years, it is not nothing so we have to do it!”, she says. For some women, the symptoms may be less invasive, but still require at least medical imaging, ultrasound or MRI.
The Ziwig company developed this test and evaluated it on 200 women in several French public hospitals, including the center of Professor Philippe Descamps at the Angers hospital, with a result that was almost 100% reliable. Doctors believe that catching the disease earlier could prevent some women from becoming infertile. “As a practitioner, we had dreamed of this for years”recognizes Professor Descamps.
The Endotest comes in the form of a kit with a plastic tube inside, in which you have to spit. Once closed, the test is to be sent by post to the laboratory, which establishes a sequencing of the patient’s DNA. He identifies markers of the disease, to know whether or not she has endometriosis.
The test is not yet available for sale, because the inventors of the Endotest hope to obtain reimbursement from Social Security. For this, they are awaiting a green light from the High Authority for Health.