France continues to move 'ahead in the management of endometriosis'
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00:00 Well, campaigners here in France have been trying to change attitudes and raise awareness
00:04 about endometriosis and they have secured a victory this week.
00:08 The supermarket chain Carrefour has become the first major company in France to announce
00:13 it will give women who suffer with the condition up to 12 days off a year.
00:18 Well to discuss, I'm very pleased to be joined on the line now by Dr Horace Romain, who is
00:23 one of France's foremost experts on endometriosis.
00:27 Welcome to the programme, sir.
00:28 Thanks for joining us.
00:29 Hello.
00:30 Can you tell us first of all just what your reaction is to this decision by Carrefour?
00:37 Well, endometriosis is a high prevalence disease and it has been ignored for so many years
00:45 that any initiative wouldn't be commanded.
00:49 So hence women working for Carrefour will maybe pay more attention to their symptoms
00:54 which may be related to endometriosis.
00:57 As the physician working for Carrefour will probably do.
01:01 But the major goal is to identify these patients and to propose them a prompt diagnosis and
01:07 management.
01:08 Indeed, because it's not just about women getting time off, is it, when they're suffering
01:12 with this?
01:13 It's also about medical advancements.
01:16 I read today that in the United Kingdom it takes about eight years for a woman to get
01:20 a diagnosis of endometriosis.
01:23 Is that about the same here in France?
01:25 Why does it take so long for women to be diagnosed with this?
01:28 Well, the delay between the first symptom to diagnosis is long because most of endometriosis
01:35 symptoms are not very specific.
01:38 So it is almost logical that during the first month the diagnosis is not affirmed.
01:46 Now from this point of view, I think we can comment the introduction of the salivary test
01:55 which may be using the micro MRI image may be an opportunity to diagnose endometriosis
02:04 earlier and to treat it earlier.
02:08 Is it the case though that there's not enough money available right now to investigate endometriosis?
02:14 Do you think the government, for example, needs to provide more money for this?
02:19 Well, there is never enough money for research in medicine in general.
02:28 But we can mention that the national strategy against endometriosis, which has been introduced
02:38 last year by the President Macron, may change some things because there is no money destined
02:46 specifically for the research and the management of endometriosis.
02:50 So I think that in France we could make a step ahead in the management of endometriosis
02:56 last year.
02:57 Yeah, you may have heard in that report we just played that a woman said, look, if men
03:03 were suffering with this, there'd be far more attention paid to it.
03:07 More treatments would now be available.
03:09 Do you think that's true?
03:12 No, not really.
03:16 I think there are a lot of painful diseases which are not diagnosed enough.
03:25 But what is for sure that endometriosis most probably has observed increased prevalence
03:34 during the last 30 to 40 years.
03:37 And the awareness about endometriosis was not enough during the last years.
03:44 But I think that now we can see a major improvement in both awareness, research and in the management
03:52 of endometriosis.
03:53 Dr. Horace Roman, thank you very much indeed, sir.
03:57 Thank you very much.