Endometriosis is a painful condition where the sensitive tissue that lines the inside of the uterus ends up growing elsewhere in the reproductive system.
A $3 million grant to University of Arizona researchers could help improve diagnosis.
The federal Office on Women’s Health estimates that about 10% of women between the ages of 15 and 44 have the condition.
And diagnosis can be challenging.
"Every woman is different. And so that's one of the challenges we're facing with our study is just understanding the whole degree of what's normal. And if you're going to make an endoscope, how do you make sure it can get through this very tiny twisty tube?" said Jennifer Barton, professor of Biomedical Engineering at UA.
She's developing a 1 millimeter-wide camera that can scope fallopian tubes.
She says that’s important, as most endometriosis cases affect the fallopian tubes even if the problem tissue is elsewhere.
“Nobody actually knows how the fallopian tubes work, even in normal, healthy women, is a little bit telling that it's definitely understudied. So with this, we hope that we will learn some basic biology. We will learn how things change during disease," Barton said.
The grant will last for five years and allow the team to build the device and conduct a pilot study.
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