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Menstruation has long been one of the most persistent taboos in society and, until recently, has received relatively little attention in medical research. Discussions about bias in medicine often focus on sex-based differences in disease presentation and treatment response, which remain understudied. Equally important, however, is the need to better understand the health issues that exclusively affect women.

This gap in knowledge is reflected in the fact that menstruation itself has only recently become a major focus of scientific investigation, as it took more than 30 years for researchers to map the nerve endings of the clitoris.

Emerging evidence suggests that menstrual cycles contain a wealth of information that could provide new insights into gynecologic and hormonal health.

Researchers from SRI International recently reported in Science Advances the development of an open-source tool called women’s health assessment through variability in endocrine-related signals, which uses physiologic signals to derive menstrual cycle metrics and support the identification of potential biomarkers.

After analyzing 5674 nonreproductive cycles from 753 participants, the tool identified associations among aging, body temperature, and cycle variability.

“Most of the focus in menstrual health, including research, medical training, consumer apps, and patents, centers exclusively on the reproductive aspect and fails to use these nonreproductive menstrual cycles as indicators of health,” said Marie Gombert-Labedens, PhD and postdoctoral researcher, from SRI’s Human Sleep Research Program in California.

Menstrual Blood

Research on menstruation has generated important findings and opened new avenues for investigation. In February, a study published in The BMJ suggested that human papillomavirus (HPV) testing using menstrual blood could offer a viable alternative to conventional cervical cancer screening.

Researchers from Wuhan University in Wuhan, China, analyzed samples from more than 3000 women aged 20-54 years and found that HPV testing using mini pad-collected menstrual blood achieved a sensitivity of 94.7% for detecting cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2 or higher compared with 92.1% for clinician-collected cervical samples.

The authors concluded that “the utility of using mini pad-collected menstrual blood for HPV testing as a standardized, noninvasive alternative or replacement for cervical cancer screening.”

However, important limitations remain. Speaking with Science Media Centre, Marta del Pino, MD, PhD, consultant in the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Hospital Clínic de Barcelona and an associate professor at the University of Barcelona in Barcelona, Spain, noted that although HPV detection using menstrual samples collected with a mini pad demonstrated good sensitivity, the findings should not be interpreted as support for replacing current screening methods.

She noted several limitations and said the “study should not be considered an immediate replacement for current screening. There are important limitations: It only includes women who menstruate and have regular cycles, and it uses a prototype device that is not commercially available. Furthermore, as is common in many screening studies, not all women with negative results underwent biopsy; this may introduce verification bias and overestimate the test’s performance.”

Another unresolved question is whether the presence of blood could interfere with the measurement of viral markers. Nevertheless, these findings highlight the potential value of menstrual blood as a source of diagnostic biomarkers.

Endometriosis Research

Researchers have also explored the use of menstrual blood for the detection of endometriosis.

In 2025, Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, in collaboration with the Insular University Hospital of Gran Canaria, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, analyzed DNA methylation profiles in menstrual blood as a potential diagnostic approach for endometriosis.

“By accessing the molecular signals in menstrual blood, we’re unlocking information about endometriosis activity that was previously only available through surgery,” said María Teresa Pérez Zaballos, PhD, co-founder and CEO of endogene.bio, Évry, France.

The study, published on bioRxiv, the preprint server for biology, evaluated a diagnostic approach based on isolating stem cells derived from menstrual blood rather than analyzing cultured cells. According to researchers, this method preserves molecular integrity and offers a more direct view of the biological processes underlying endometriosis.

As with HPV testing, the key to this approach lies in its noninvasive nature and cost-effectiveness. Although the research is still at an early stage, it proves that studying menstruation can uncover diagnostic opportunities and research directions that have not been widely considered until recently.

This article was translated from El Médico Interactivo, part of the Medscape Professional Network.