UK researchers develop urine and vaginal fluid test for womb cancer
Lancet study in northwest England targets postmenopausal bleeding referrals, specialist staffing becomes the next bottleneck
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The new test could be used to triage women suspected of having womb cancer for rapid diagnosis. Photograph: andrei_r/Getty Images/iStockphoto
theguardian.com
A non-invasive test using cells collected from urine and vaginal fluid samples identified 80 of 99 womb cancer cases among 1,864 women who attended hospitals in northwest England with postmenopausal bleeding, according to a study reported by The Guardian. The work, led by researchers at the University of Manchester and Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, is aimed at a common clinical problem: bleeding after menopause triggers urgent cancer referral, but only a minority of patients are ultimately diagnosed with womb cancer.
In today’s pathway, women are typically sent for internal ultrasound scans and may undergo biopsy of the womb lining or hysteroscopy, procedures that are uncomfortable, resource-intensive, and difficult to scale when referrals rise. The new approach tries to separate those who need rapid invasive investigation from those who can be monitored more conservatively. In the study, specialist cytologists who were blinded to the women’s diagnoses examined the samples; the test returned a negative result for 93% of women who did not have womb cancer, while missing 19 of the 99 confirmed cases.
That performance is why the researchers describe the test as a triage tool rather than a standalone rule-out. A clinic that can offer quick, cheap sampling can shift the system’s bottleneck: not every patient would need immediate endoscopic investigation, but the patients who do need it could be prioritised sooner. The trade-off is operational as much as scientific. The Guardian notes that the samples were assessed by highly trained cytologists, leaving open whether similar accuracy can be achieved across other hospitals without the same specialist staffing. The test has also not been studied in women without symptoms, limiting any move toward population screening.
The findings were published in Lancet Obstetrics, Gynaecology, & Women’s Health. Prof Emma Davidson, cited by The Guardian, said the approach could transform care by reducing unnecessary invasive testing while still supporting rapid diagnosis for those at highest risk.
In the dataset behind the headline, 1,765 women did not have womb cancer. For most of them, the test result was negative.