Simple urine test could spare thousands of women from invasive womb cancer checks, Manchester researchers say

From the Newshound archive · first published 23 September 2026 · last updated 24 September 2026.

Researchers at the University of Manchester have developed a cheap, non-invasive test that analyses cells from urine and vaginal fluid samples and correctly identified 80 per cent of womb cancers. With a negative predictive value of 98.8 per cent, a negative result makes the disease highly unlikely. Around 10,200 women in the UK receive a new womb cancer diagnosis each year, yet only 5 to 10 per cent of those urgently referred because of postmenopausal bleeding actually have the disease, making the majority of current invasive procedures redundant.

Among high-grade tumours the test achieved a detection rate of 95.8 per cent, and it caught every case among Black women — a group whose risk of dying from womb cancer is twice that of White women in the UK.

Internal ultrasounds, womb biopsies and hysteroscopies are invasive, uncomfortable and costly for the NHS; the researchers noted that 'most are unnecessary'.

The results, drawn from a study of 1,864 women across seven hospitals in north-west England, were published in the Lancet Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Women's Health.