Publications by authors named "J Girling"
Study Question: Can a panel of plasma protein biomarkers be identified to accurately and specifically diagnose endometriosis?
Summary Answer: A novel panel of 10 plasma protein biomarkers was identified and validated, demonstrating strong predictive accuracy for the diagnosis of endometriosis.
What Is Known Already: Endometriosis poses intricate medical challenges for affected individuals and their physicians, yet diagnosis currently takes an average of 7 years and normally requires invasive laparoscopy. Consequently, the need for a simple, accurate non-invasive diagnostic tool is paramount.
Objective: The aim of this study is to identify and explore the unmet needs of adolescents and young adults living with endometriosis.
Design: An open-ended online survey was conducted, with questions derived from prior research looking at areas of unmet need in healthcare, career and work, financial, information, psychological, social and cultural domains.
Setting And Population: Self-selecting 18-25 year olds with surgically diagnosed endometriosis (self-reported) currently living in Australia were included as participants.
Background: Despite surgical and pharmacological interventions, endometriosis can recur. Reliable information regarding risk of recurrence following a first diagnosis is scant. The aim of this study was to examine clinical and survey data in the setting of disease recurrence to identify predictors of risk of endometriosis recurrence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Cervical cerclage, cervical pessary, and vaginal progesterone have each been shown to reduce preterm birth (PTB) in high-risk women, but to our knowledge, there has been no randomised comparison of the 3 interventions. The SuPPoRT "Stitch, Pessary, or Progesterone Randomised Trial" was designed to compare the rate of PTB <37 weeks between each intervention in women who develop a short cervix in pregnancy.
Methods And Findings: SuPPoRT was a multicentre, open label 3-arm randomised controlled trial designed to demonstrate equivalence (equivalence margin 20%) conducted from 1 July 2015 to 1 July 2021 in 19 obstetric units in the United Kingdom.
Article Synopsis
- - Endometriosis is a common condition that typically requires surgery for diagnosis, indicating a need for non-invasive biomarkers, such as extracellular vesicles (EVs), though research on EVs in this context is limited.
- - This study explored how effective it is to isolate EVs from cervico-vaginal fluid using cervical brushes and vaginal swabs, finding that both methods yield intact vesicles with some contaminants, but cervical brushes produced higher particle concentrations.
- - While both sampling techniques showed similar levels of protein and miRNA, the overall EV yield was low, suggesting that either method could potentially be used for future biomarker research in endometriosis.