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Review
. 2025 Aug 7:15:1595182.
doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2025.1595182. eCollection 2025.

The untapped potential of vaginal microbiome diagnostics for improving women's health

Ana Sofia Da Silva #  1 , Saba Anwar #  2 , Suenie Park  3 , Sunwha Park  3   4 , Laura Goodfellow  5 , Chrysi Sergaki  2
Affiliations
Review

The untapped potential of vaginal microbiome diagnostics for improving women's health

Ana Sofia Da Silva et al. Front Cell Infect Microbiol. .

Abstract

Microbiome research has expanded rapidly over the past 15 years; however, the primary focus has been on the gut microbiome. Although understudied, the vaginal microbiome holds significant potential to improve women's health. In this paper, we describe the current clinical diagnostic techniques utilised in women's health and examine their drawbacks and limitations. We also discuss emerging diagnostic technologies based on microbiome analysis that could enable greater precision in diagnosis and personalised treatment. We additionally emphasise the need for standardisation in microbiome analysis and strengthening the knowledge base to enable advancements in accurate diagnosis, ultimately improving patient outcomes. This article aims to highlight opportunities in the field that can transform women's health outcomes and outline the necessary actions to realise these opportunities, thereby enhancing women's lives.

Keywords: diagnostics; personalised treatment; standardisation; vaginal microbiome; women’s health.

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Conflict of interest statement

The Medicines and Healthcare product Regulatory Authority laboratories at South Mimms is part of an Arm’s Length Body of the UK Government. The laboratories prepare, curate and distribute globally, reference materials including WHO International Standards. The distribution of reference materials is undertaken on a cost-recovery basis. Further information is available at www.nibsc.org. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Potential of vaginal microbiome diagnostics in advancing women’s health (The icons on the right were obtained using freely available resources from Freepik, and the image on the left was generated with ChatGPT 4.0).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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