A June 2 release from the National Institutes of Health has uncovered some recent findings on the causes of – and potential ideas for treatment for – uterine fibroids. Uterine fibroids are noncancerous tumors in the uterus, and represent a health concern for as many as four in every five women in the United States. According to the release, researchers at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health (NICHD) have discovered that fibroid tumors lack a protein called dermatopontin. This protein, explained Dr. William Catherino of the NICHD, is essential in holding tissues together, and lack of it may account for the abnormal growth of fibroids.
Dermatopontin is an important component extracellular matrix – an elastic "net" of collagen and other proteins that holds cells in place, and keeps them from growing where they should not. In addition to uterine fibroids, thick growths of scar tissue called keloids have also been found to lack the protein.
In the fibroid tumors the researchers examined, the collagen strands were tangled and disorganized, while in normal tissue, collagen grows in an organized pattern of strands. Dr. Catherino and colleagues hypothesize that lack of dermatopontin may prevent the cells that become fibroid cells from turning into normally functioning cells, and instead turns them into cells which resemble collagen-producing cells known as fibroblast.
These new findings add one more piece of evidence to a pool of information that suggests fibroids have a strong genetic component – and that they could someday be fought at a genetic level.
Fibroids, which can grow within the uterus, in the uterine wall, or the muscular wall of the uterus, can cause excessive or irregular bleeding, urinary and bowel problems including bowel obstruction, and fertility or pregnancy complications, and while there are a number of effective treatments for patients to try, prevention would naturally be preferable to treatment post-facto.
More information on the study, as well as the original article, can be found at http://www.nichd.nih.gov.
