<aside> <img src="/icons/playback-play-button_gray.svg" alt="/icons/playback-play-button_gray.svg" width="40px" /> INTRODUCTION
Women's health has long remained on the fringes of modern medicine, with symptoms downplayed and research too weak. Even today, less than 5% of worldwide funding for medical research is devoted to women's diseases.
The diseases covered by this study affect millions of women, and all have one thing in common: delayed diagnosis of the health, economic and psychological consequences.
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<aside> <img src="/icons/history_gray.svg" alt="/icons/history_gray.svg" width="40px" /> HISTORY
The turning point came in the late 1980s in the US, following the publication of a report highlighting the under-representation of women in clinical trials. A few years later, the National Institute of Health and the FDA made it mandatory to include women in publicly-funded medical research. In France, the first prevention plans targeting cervical cancer or diseases such as endometriosis or PCOS only began in the 2010s. Today, the explosion of artificial intelligence in the medical field is disrupting this vertical.
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<aside> <img src="/icons/hourglass_gray.svg" alt="/icons/hourglass_gray.svg" width="40px" /> TREATMENT DELAYS
The treatment of diseases specific to women is strongly marked by excessive diagnostic delays, sometimes exceeding 7 years, as in the case of endometriosis or PCOS. This delay is often due to the trivialization of symptoms, lack of access to appropriate examinations (MRI, specialized ultrasound, smears, etc.) and the medical profession's underestimation of female pain.
As a result, many women endure years of debilitating pain and medical wandering, and experience the direct impact of this delay: worsening of illnesses, infertility, chronicity and recourse to major interventions when early detection would have made it possible to avoid major complications.
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Cervical cancer is the 5th leading cause of cancer mortality in France. The main reason: late diagnosis.
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<aside> <img src="/icons/question-mark_gray.svg" alt="/icons/question-mark_gray.svg" width="40px" /> STRUCTURAL BIAIS & DIAGNOSIS INEQUALITY IN WOMEN’S HEALTH
These delays in diagnosis are ultimately the consequence of an historical under-investment in women's health research: low representation of women in clinical trials and inadequate training of professionals in these pathologies.
"While women make up 49.6% of the world's population, they accounted for only 38% of subjects included in publicly-funded studies published in high-impact internal medicine journals in 2009."
In addition, diagnostic tools are often unsuitable, require rare expertise, or are not systematically offered. Medicine has long adopted a standard "neutral" approach, which obscures women's specificities and contributes to the minimization of complaints, as shown by the #NousToutes collective in 2022: 78% of women had their pain minimized.
<aside> <img src="/icons/arrow-right_red.svg" alt="/icons/arrow-right_red.svg" width="40px" />
10% of women worldwide suffer from endometriosis, and no dedicated treatments exists to date.
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<aside> <img src="/icons/target_gray.svg" alt="/icons/target_gray.svg" width="40px" /> A CONSEQUENT IMPACT
The consequences of delayed treatment and lack of care weigh heavily: chronic pain, loss of fertility or cancer prevention opportunities, sometimes irreversible complications and a major economic cost. Endometriosis costs €10,000 per patient per year, rising to €35,000 for patients with ovarian cancer.
In addition to health costs, these illnesses also generate high absenteeism, loss of productivity, and great psychological suffering, accentuated by isolation and the feeling that their pain is not taken seriously.
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On average, it is estimated that endometriosis patients lose 11 hours of productivity per week.
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<aside> <img src="/icons/playback-next_gray.svg" alt="/icons/playback-next_gray.svg" width="40px" /> THE NEW LEVERS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
The benefits of artificial intelligence in medicine have been demonstrated many times. In the specific case of women's health, it is also opening up new perspectives at every stage of the healthcare process.
▶️ **Diagnosis**: faster, more reliable diagnosis thanks to pattern recognition, imaging analysis and automated screening technologies.
▶️ **Monitoring**: anticipating pain crises or targeted prevention in the case of osteoporosis.
▶️ **Treatment**: creating specific care for each individual & accelerating the research in that field.
Ultimately, digital innovation will make it possible to reduce medical wandering and offer each patient rapid, personalized care that is better adapted to her needs.
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