Questions about test’s use
Lauren Thaxton, MD, assistant professor in the department of women’s health at the University of Texas at Austin, told this publication she sees the ease of use by patients at home as the biggest benefit of the test strips.
She said she’s not sure they would add much benefit otherwise because “we already have a pretty great way of identifying pregnancy tissue by floating the products of conception.”
She said the traditional “floating products” method is very inexpensive, involving a pan and strainer, and may be more comprehensive in that it can determine whether a miscarriage is finished.
She also wonders whether in the current legal climate of abortion laws, the test could be used not only to prove that an abortion didn’t happen but used as evidence the opposite way to criminalize abortion.
It’s unfortunate that we are evaluating new technology as ‘could this cause more harm than good?’ But I think it would be wrong not to recognize the long history of criminalization of abortion as well as the current reproductive health and policy climate,” Dr. Thaxton said.
Coauthors Amir Mor, MD, PhD, and Hugh Taylor, MD, hold U.S. patent rights related to the methods described in this article. Coauthor David Seifer, MD, received payment from the Women’s Integrated Network and Rutgers Medical School. In this article the authors describe off-label use of the ROM Plus test kit, produced by Laborie USA. This device was used to test vaginal blood for the presence of embryonic or fetal products. The other authors did not report any potential conflicts of interest. Dr. Thaxton reports no relevant financial relationships.