US partnership raises hopes for at-home endometriosis test

A US fertility lab has announced a groundbreaking partnership to develop an at-home endometriosis blood test.

Innovative Health Diagnostics (IHD), a California-based CLIA- and FDA-certified lab, has teamed up with AIMA Laboratories to advance endometriosis diagnosis.

The at-home test identifies certain microRNA biomarkers that are differentially expressed in women with endometriosis and its accuracy is comparable to laparoscopy – a type of surgery that is used to get a closer look into a woman’s abdomen and reproductive system.

Laparoscopy is used to both diagnose and treat endometriosis, detecting and removing endometrial lesions. Because laparoscopy is a more invasive procedure, it often takes years for women to get tested and treated.

The new IHD-AIMA test will complement laparoscopic procedures and is hoped to help eliminate diagnostic delays, enabling a noninvasive way to test for endometriosis, and allow for patients who receive a positive test result to undergo a laparoscopy for treatment much sooner.

“We’re thrilled to partner with AIMA to offer a service that provides actionable results and allows millions of women access to early diagnostic tools to detect endometriosis, carving a path to the right care, at the right time and when it’s most convenient,” said David White, IHD CEO and co-founder.

“At IHD, it is our mission to deliver solutions that provide hope to people struggling with infertility, and our partnership with AIMA further enables that mission.”

Dr Lauren Foster, co-founder and CEO of AIMA said: “At AIMA, our mission is to shorten a woman’s path to a healthier tomorrow.

“We’re working to build a world where women actively participate in their own healthcare decisions, starting with endometriosis diagnostics. Our partnership with IHD enables us to serve the millions impacted by this debilitating condition and supplies them with a solution to diagnostic delays.”

Endometriosis, a disease where tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside the uterus, causing pain and infertility problems, affects roughly 190 million women of reproductive age globally.

However, a diagnostic can typically take between five to 12 years.

According to the charity Endometriosis UK, awareness of the condition is still low – an issues that leads to GPs labelling endometriosis symptoms as “just a bad period”.