New swab tests will help hundreds of thousands of women in the UK who may have uterine cancer to avoid invasive procedures that often involve painful diseases to detect.
Because they suffer from abnormal bleeding from the uterus, around 800,000 women go to see their GP each year, and then undergo unpleasant and stressful investigations to determine the cause.
Most postmenopausal women who have many bleeding do a transvalued ultrasound scan, in which a scanner probe is inserted into the vagina to measure the thickness of the vaginal endometrium. Many then continue with further invasive testing known as hysteroscopy and biopsies.
However, the new test is as accurate as ultrasound scans in the detection of disease, the fourth most common cancer in women in the UK, reducing the number of false positives by 87%. Approximately 10,600 women are diagnosed each year, and since the 1990s, the number of diagnoses has increased by 60%.
Called the Wid-Easy Test, it was invented by Martin Widschwendter, a professor of women's cancer at the EGA Women's Health Institute and University of Innsbruck in London.
“The easy-to-width test is the first of its kind in the UK, using a simple swab method to detect uterine cancer,” he said.
In this test, women over the age of 45 visit doctors as uterine bleeding removed swelling from the vagina and analyzed using a polymerase chain reaction test. It sees the “tag” at the top of female DNA, known as DNA methylation.
UCL explains: “DNA from cancer cells has a specific pattern of DNA methylation, like a barcode with no width, which is specially “scanned” by easy width testing to indicate whether uterine cancer is present. ”
The test is registered with the Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulation Authority (MHRA), which approves drugs and medical devices used in the UK. Private clinics already use it, as well as medical facilities in Austria and Switzerland.
If the NHS is adopting a new test, it could lead to women diagnosed or excluded faster than they are now, according to Eve's appeal, which funded the research behind the test. Athena Ramnissos, chief executive of the gynecological cancer charity, said, “Currently in the UK, tests investigating abnormal bleeding and uterine cancer checks can cause stress and discomfort, making patients much easier for them.
The test has also been shown to be more accurate than ultrasound in diagnosing uterine cancer in black women, she added.
After the newsletter promotion
Three-quarters of uterine cancer diagnosis are in women over the age of 55. Being overweight or obese, eating processed foods like sugar, taking estrogen-only HRTs, and becoming menopause after age 55 is one risk factor.
Helen Handman, a senior nurse at the charity, added that women investigated for uterine cancer often feel stressed and anxious during the “bad” waiting periods of waiting for results. “The width test helps speed up the patient's process, and for more women it eliminates uterine cancer much faster, brings about greater relief, reducing anxiety, waiting times and even pain.”
She welcomed the breakthrough as a “big step forward” and urged the NHS to start using it. “Saving thousands of women from needing further investigation will not only benefit women, but will help ease the burden on the NHS by avoiding additional appointments and diagnostic procedures such as hysteroscopy and biopsies.”
