DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF A METHOD FOR ESTIMATING MENSTRUAL BLOOD LOSS BASED ON ALKALINE-HAEMATIN EXTRACTION

Pogodina Ekaterina Alexandrovna, Lobov Anton Viktorovich, Ivanova Polina Igorevna, Golovnya Evgeniy Gennadievich, Sorokina Ekaterina Vyacheslavovna

Assessment of menstrual blood loss is crucial for the diagnosis and management of gynecological diseases, but there is no standardized laboratory test to accurately quantify menstrual blood loss. The aim of this study was to evaluate and optimize the alkaline-hematin test for the assessment of menstrual blood loss using modern laboratory equipment. Five female volunteers who provided used menstrual hygiene products during one complete menstrual cycle participated in the study. The samples were subjected to alkaline extraction and hemoglobin concentration was measured using a Tecan Infinite f50 spectrophotometer. Before the main study, we tested whether the brand of hygiene product affected the results of hemoglobin extraction and verified that there were no significant differences between different brands of products. The results showed different amounts of menstrual blood loss in the volunteers and correlated with the gynecological history of the volunteers. The study confirmed the feasibility of using the alkaline-hematin test to quantify menstrual blood loss, demonstrating its potential application in clinical practice. However, further validation with the involvement of more volunteers is needed to establish reference values, optimize sample collection methods, and develop a universal algorithm for recalculating results for use in clinical practice and for patients. This method can serve as a valuable diagnostic tool that will allow an objective assessment of the amount of blood loss, and can also be used as a marker of the effectiveness of therapy.

Keywords:menstruation, anemia, laboratory diagnostics, oncology