Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
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.

PubMed Disclaimer

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

References

    1. Al-Memar M., Bobdiwala S., Fourie H., Mannino R., Lee Y. S., Smith A., et al. (2020). The association between vaginal bacterial composition and miscarriage: a nested case–control study. BJOG. doi: 10.1111/1471-0528.15972 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Amsel R., Totten P. A., Spiegel C. A., Chen K. C.S., Eschenbach D., Holmes K. K. (1983). Nonspecific vaginitis. Diagnostic criteria and microbial and epidemiologic associations. Am. J. Med. doi: 10.1016/0002-9343(83)91112-9 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Anwar S., Mate R., Sinnakandu P., Hassall L., Tierney S., Vinci C., et al. (2023). EXPERT COMMITTEE ON BIOLOGICAL STANDARDIZATION Geneva, 16 to 19 October 2023 A WHO collaborative study to evaluate the candidate WHO International Reference Reagent for DNA extraction of the Gut Microbiome. Available at: www.who.int.
    1. Aquino C. I., Nicosia A., Ligori A., Volpicelli A. I., Surico D. (2024). Microbiota status and endometrial cancer: A narrative review about possible correlations in affected versus healthy patients. Sci 6. doi: 10.3390/sci6040075 - DOI
    1. Ata B., Yildiz S., Turkgeldi E., Brocal V. P., Dinleyici E. C., Moya A., et al. (2019). The endobiota study: comparison of vaginal, cervical and gut microbiota between women with stage 3/4 endometriosis and healthy controls. Sci. Rep. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-39700-6 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources