Endometriosis biomarkers: Will codevelopment in academia–industry partnerships result in new and robust noninvasive diagnostic tests?

Thomas D’Hooghe, Thomas M D'Hooghe, Amelie Fassbender, Dorien F O, F. O. Dorien, Arne Vanhie
Biology of reproduction · 2019 · vol. 101(6) , pp. 1140–1145 · doi:10.1093/biolre/ioz016 · PMID:30715151 · W2912160595
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Academia-industry partnerships are crucial for validating promising endometriosis biomarkers and establishing consensus to develop robust noninvasive diagnostic tests, overcoming current research limitations in reproducibility and validation.

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Abstract

Endometriosis is an important gynecological disease, affecting 10% of reproductive age women, and associated with pain, infertility, reduced quality of life, and high health economic cost. Except for ultrasound detection of ovarian endometriotic cysts, the gold standard for diagnosis is laparoscopy, leading to diagnostic delays of 5-10 years. Accurate noninvasive biomarkers are needed, especially for symptomatic women with a normal gynecological ultrasound, to triage them towards medical or surgical treatment and to monitor their treatment outcome. Such biomarkers are not available today, largely because the research focus has been on discovery, not on reproducibility and validation. Academia/industry partnerships can move this field forward by validation of promising markers, consensus on endometriosis phenotypes/controls and desirable accuracy (sensitivity/specificity). Such partnerships should increase the quality and reproducibility of target discovery work and foster global consensus on the use of relevant preclinical/animal models, if they are managed with complete (financial) transparency and with the aim to translate innovation into products benefiting patients. It is essential that mutual objectives are clarified between industry and academia partners including intellectual property policy, critical decision points, funding agreements, milestones and timelines, with a clear strategy for project termination/change of strategy, a restriction on publications till new discoveries have been patented, considering that a minority of novel findings can be translated into new therapeutic targets, diagnostics, or marketed products.

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Condition tags

mesh:D004715endometriosisinfertility

MeSH descriptors

Biomarkers Endometriosis Public-Private Sector Partnerships Biomarkers Diagnostic Tests, Routine Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Female Humans Precision Medicine Reproducibility of Results Ultrasonography

Citation neighborhood

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

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Cited by (11)

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