'Smart Tampons' Could Help Detect Cervical Cancer and Other Harmful Health Conditions

It's still early in development, but the at-home test has the potential to help women who would otherwise have to wait for their annual exams.

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Wearable technology already tracks our heart rate and movement, so why not our reproductive health, too?​

It's far too easy for women's health issues to go undetected and undiagnosed between annual exams, say entrepreneur Ridhi Tariyal and scientist Stephen Gire.

Often, women don't realize they have cervical cancer, which can be asymptomatic, or other hard-to-diagnose conditions like endometriosis, until it's too late. Left untreated, these diseases can interfere with fertility and even cause death. Realizing the need to pinpoint reproductive issues early on, Tariyal and Gire, who met at an infectious disease lab at Harvard, began developing a "smart tampon" to help women track their vaginal health each month, Fast Company reports.


"You can pick up a disease any time, and letting it sit there for a year until your next visit can have consequences downstream that you don't want," said Tariyal. "The system has to change."

The devices will collect blood samples that can be tested to help women "proactively keep track of their health...in the privacy of their homes." The technology could even record certain health indicators in a database to monitor long-term risks, according to Fast Company.

Tariyal and Gire's startup, NextGen Jane, has secured seed funding and begun clinical trials, but it could be a while before the product hits stores, Women's Health explains. The entrepreneurs aren't sharing any details about how the smart tampon works because it's still in development.

"Our vision is to manage reproductive health from menarche to menopause," said Tariyal. "We're thinking about all the ways that women could find data about their bodies useful."

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