Endometrial cancer is the sixth most common tumor in women worldwide. In 2020, it was the cause of almost 100,000 deaths in Europe and the United States. Early diagnosis is associated with a 5-year survival rate of 95%. Endometriosis, chronic endometritis and implantation failures also affect a high percentage of the population and have an enormous social impact due to their consequences on reproductive desire and the general health of women.
Currently, most of these pathologies are diagnosed through an endometrial biopsy. In the case of endometrial cancer, this method fails in 31% of cases and is inaccurate in 55%, making a second biopsy or a more invasive hospital procedure, requiring sedation, such as hysteroscopy, necessary.
A team from the University of Murcia, headed by Dr. Pilar Coy and involving Rafael Latorre and Analuce Canha, is developing a device that would facilitate the diagnosis of these pathologies by allowing the taking of a pure sample of endometrial fluid, without contamination. with blood or endometrial cells. Most current devices take tissue samples, not fluid, which are subjected to an anatomo-pathological study, and the results usually take a month. Devices that allow liquid to be taken do so by aspiration (negative pressure) and provide a very small and unclean volume of this liquid. With the new device, “the procedure would be painless and the endometrial mucosa would not be damaged,” explains the researcher. With this sample, the diagnosis using molecular biomarkers present in the liquid “would be greatly facilitated,” she adds. The results would be obtained in less than 48 hours.
For the device, different types of materials are being tested, all of them biocompatible. The project financed by the CaixaImpulse program aims to manufacture 200 units of the device and validate it for different pathologies in groups of 20 patients.
Transparency statement: This research is funded by the “la Caixa” Foundation, an entity that supports the Big Vang scientific information channel.
