The following is a summary of the “Endometriosis-associated infertility diagnosis based on saliva microRNA signatures,” published in the January 2023 issue of Reproductive Biomedicine Online by Dabi, et al.

From January 2021 to June 2021, 200 women with pelvic pain indicative of endometriosis provided saliva samples for the prospective ENDOmiARN study (NCT04728152). Laparoscopy, MRI, or both were performed on every patient. In this study, patients diagnosed with endometriosis were divided into 2 groups, one for those who could have children and another for those who were not. Next-generation sequencing was employed to identify a panel of miRNA biomarkers. A random forest model was used to design a miRNA signature of infertility in endometriosis patients detectable in their saliva.

Of the 153 patients diagnosed with endometriosis, 36 were infertile (24%), while 117 were fertile (76%). From approximately 13.7 million to approximately 39.3 million raw sequencing reads per sample, approximately 3712 million raw sequencing reads were obtained from sequencing the small RNA in the 153 saliva samples. The feature selection method identified a signature of 34 miRNAs associated with infertility due to endometriosis out of 2561 miRNAs. The best signature model achieved 100% in sensitivity, specificity, and area under the curve in validation.

Researchers have found a unique pattern of microRNAs (miRNAs) in the saliva of women with endometriosis experiencing fertility issues. This non-invasive tool has the potential to impact the care provided to women with endometriosis significantly. However, further external validation of the results is necessary before the signature can be used in routine practice.

Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1472648322007143