We live in a world where various products are now being made smarter while humans are being made unsmart because they are too dependent on technology. This does not mean that efforts to make everyday products smarter should stop. Researchers from ETH Zurich have developed a smart sanitary napkin called MenstruAI that can be used to detect various types of diseases earlier.
Blood has long been used to track the emergence of diseases through biomarker readings. The smart sanitary napkin that was developed is capable of detecting dangerous diseases such as ovarian cancer, cervical cancer and endometriosis by detecting protein biomarkers in menstrual blood. Because menstruation occurs once a month, it can detect changes in the body's biomarkers with consistent frequency.
At this point, this smart sanitary napkin has the ability to detect C-reactive Protein (CRP) as a marker of general inflammation, CEA biomarkers that are increased due to all types of cancer, and CA-125 protein that is increased due to endometriosis and ovarian cancer. Researchers will add more biomarker detections to this sanitary napkin to track the health of the body.
This smart sanitary napkin is inspired by Covid test kits with saliva replaced with blood. The test strip placed on the sanitary napkin will change color when it interacts with biomarkers in menstrual blood. The different colors will be interpreted and therefore a picture of the sanitary napkin needs to be taken and then analyzed by a specially developed application.
Lab tests have already been conducted and the next phase is to test this MenstruAI in the real world with 100 participants.