Researchers led by University of Oxford academic Dr Tatjana Gibbons have successfully trialled non-invasive scans to diagnose endometriosis.

Published in The Lancet Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Women’s Health, the study involved 19 individuals with either strong signs of “pelvic or thoracic endometriosis”, or who had already received a diagnosis. The non-invasive scan was carried out after the intravenous administration of an imaging agent that binds to tissue, and makes endometriosis growths visible on screen. 

The study demonstrated 100% specificity, meaning no false positives were reported. As such, the scan offers a viable alternative to the existing invasive diagnostic procedures. Dr Gibbons told Cherwell: “This imaging method could support patients getting an earlier diagnosis and could help diagnose endometriosis subtypes that can’t be reliably seen non-invasively.” 

Endometriosis is an inflammatory disease, in which cells similar to those found in the uterus grow in other parts of the body, such as the ovaries and fallopian tubes, but can also spread to the bladder, bowel, and chest. Symptoms such as heavy periods accompanied by severe pain and pain during sex are triggered when endometriosis growths break down but cannot leave the body.  

The condition affects an estimated 10% (190 million) of women of childbearing age. The causes of endometriosis are unknown, though some research has connected it to immune system dysregulation. The disease can also have significant impacts on fertility, with 25-50% of infertile women having endometriosis. 

At present, there are no known cures for the disease. 

Typically, diagnosis requires invasive laparoscopic surgery, which involves directly observing tissue or taking samples for examination. The complexity and expense of the procedure often lead to delays in treatment and the continuation of suffering for the patient, with one study by the charity Endometriosis UK suggesting wait times have reached an average of nine years. Currently, around 40% of surgical procedures produce negative results. Gibbons hopes the study will tackle these waiting times, and “empower the development of new therapies”. She added that the next step for the pilot study is a larger clinical trial, which she hopes will validate the team’s findings. 

Oxford Women in STEM Society told Cherwell: “The pilot scheme is a positive step, but it also highlights how delayed progress in this area has been…Conditions like endometriosis have been consistently underfunded and dismissed, which has led to real harm.”

The society hopes that the study will not only improve treatment timelines, but also “force a shift” in attitudes towards women’s pain by healthcare companies and professionals. 

The Oxford study has made national news, and was featured in an episode of Saturday Night Live UK. As part of the “Weekend Update” skit, the study was used in a joke about the pain that has come to be associated with female health procedures.

For more than three decades, Greg Brennan has made a career out of being just outside the frame. As one of Britain’s longest-standing press photographers, he has captured royalty, world leaders, musicians, actors and cultural icons, from Queen Elizabeth II to Michael Jackson, Kate Moss and the Osbournes. His new book, The Big Shot, brings together over 100 photographs from that career, but it is not simply a parade of famous faces. Told in Brennan’s own words, with a narrative shaped by his son Dylan, the book reveals the patience, instinct and personal memory behind images that often lasted only a fraction of a second.

When I spoke to Brennan, it quickly became clear that The Big Shot is as much about stories as photographs: the myths that attach themselves to celebrity images, the moments that happen away from the red carpet, and the strange experience of a photographer, usually hidden behind the lens, becoming the subject himself.

For Brennan, fame itself has not changed much. After years spent photographing some of the most recognisable people in the world, he speaks about celebrity with the calmness of someone who has long since stopped being starstruck. “Fame is fame”, he says. “I think that the thing that I’ve taken most from it is that they’re just normal people, despite being famous. They’re no different from us, really”.

Still, there are exceptions. The most surreal moment of his career, he tells me, came at three in the morning, when a newspaper picture desk called to ask whether he could work that night. “I said, ‘depends on what it is, it’s 3am’, and they said, ‘Michael Jackson’s going shopping in Harrods, and they want somebody to accompany him’”. Ten minutes later, Brennan was sitting with Jackson in the empty department store, spending two and a half hours with him as he shopped in the middle of the night. “It was the most surreal thing ever”, he says. “I learned a lot about him that night. The picture that the media portrays of him isn’t who the man himself was. He was very, very different”.

That tension between public and private runs throughout The Big Shot. Brennan’s work often captures people at their most recognisable, but he seems more interested in what is behind the performance. Yet in a profession often criticised for its intrusiveness, he is careful about where he draws the line. “An intrusive photographer, for me, is one who takes pictures of people who are unaware, takes pictures sneakily”, he says. “I tend to not partake in that. You’ll notice throughout the book that everybody sees me; everybody knows I’m there”.

His approach, he says, is built on respect. He has photographed concerts, royal events, street scenes and premieres, but insists he has “never had a bad experience with anyone”. Celebrities, he points out, understand the economy of visibility: “We feed into them, they feed into us, and it’s a trade-off. But being respectful is always the best way”.

Respect, in Brennan’s case, also means context. One of the book’s purposes is to correct the stories that have grown around certain images. He shows me a photograph of Kate Moss seated on a staircase, smoking. Over the years, Brennan says, it has often been misunderstood. “I read all sorts of nonsense: that she tripped over her dress, that she fell down the stairs”, he says. “People said that she was drunk, and that it was 3am, and I scratched my head”.

The reality, he explains, was far less scandalous. The photograph was taken at 6pm, before the night had properly begun. Moss was sitting at the back exit of a theatre, smoking a cigarette, waiting for a taxi to take her to her birthday party. “I was home by 7:30”, Brennan says. “She was not drunk in this picture. So I want readers to get the truth”. The word ‘truth’ feels central to the book. Brennan understands that photographs are slippery things. They can be beautiful, iconic, even historic, while still being misread. But for him, the story behind a picture is part of the picture itself.

This becomes clearest when he shows me his portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. The image is called Stamp of Approval, and it took him twelve years. “The reason it took twelve years is because she’s not sitting with me; she’s sitting in a carriage, riding past me”, he says. “And every year we would do it, I’d get four or five frames”.

In 2015, he finally got ‘The One’. “I took four others that day, but they weren’t the same”, he says. The next morning, he printed a small copy, wrote a letter and sent it to Buckingham Palace. To his surprise, they replied. The photograph eventually entered the Royal Photographic Collection. “The Queen loved it”, he says.

It is the kind of story that transforms the image. Without it, the photograph is still striking. With it, it becomes the result of twelve years of patience. “We can look at an image, and it can be misconstrued, it can be interpreted in many different ways”, Brennan says. “But for me, as a photographer and as a photojournalist, the story is just as important as the picture”.

On the surface, The Big Shot is a book about famous people. But by speaking to Greg Brennan, I learned that it is also about the strange intimacy of photographing people the world thinks it already knows. It reveals both a photographer’s view of celebrity, and a life spent watching closely, waiting patiently, and finding the story hidden inside the frame. 

The Big Shot will be released on 26 May. Greg and Dylan Brennan will be giving a talk at Blackwell’s on 27 May.