A breakthrough in uterine fibroid treatment options was discovered with the development of uterine fibroid embolization (UFE) as a treatment for fibroids. The procedure, which uses new technology to block the blood flow to the fibroid, is unique among minimally invasive fibroid treatments. This is because patients have been able to become pregnant and carry those pregnancies to term after recovering from the procedure.| Take Action |
When is UFE your best option?
When heavy, prolonged menstrual bleeding is causing anemia or a decrease in your quality of life, and it has not responded to other treatments.
You have chosen to not have a hysterectomy to control bleeding because you wish to keep your uterus.
Other existing medical conditions, such as severe lung or liver disease, make it dangerous for you to have the general anesthesia required for a hysterectomy.
You are many years away from menopause, when fibroids are more likely to go away on their own.
Your uterine fibroid symptoms are severe enough to outweigh any risks associated with UFE. |
Fibroids are benign (noncancerous) tumors. According to the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, an estimated one out of every four or five women over the age of 35 have them. Some studies even suggest that roughly three quarters of women develop fibroids before the end of their reproductive years. While they are often harmless and tiny, fibroids and their growth patterns are unpredictable, and some reach the size of a grapefruit.
Large or multiple fibroids can cause a host of symptoms. Most common among these are heavy periods (menorrhagia) or other abnormal bleeding, pain in the reproductive track, bloating, digestive or urinary problems, and repeated miscarriage. For women whose lives are disrupted by such symptoms, treatment is usually necessary.
UFE is one of several minimally invasive treatment options for uterine fibroids. But other fibroid treatments – which include laparoscopy (the removal of fibroid tissue using a telescope-like device called a laparoscope), myolysis (destruction of fibroid tissue with electrical currents or lasers), and cryomyolysis (destruction of fibroid tissue with the use of a freezing agent) – often make it very unlikely or impossible for patients to become pregnant after treatment. They either disrupt the delicate tissue of the uterus too extensively, or they leave patients at risk for scarring or disruptive excesses of fibroid tissue in the uterus.
For some patients suffering from fibroids, the likelihood of being unable to become pregnant or carry a pregnancy to term after treatment is not a drawback. For other women, however, loss of the ability to bear children is devastating, even if fibroid-related symptoms were seriously interfering with the quality of their lives before treatment.
UFE enables precision treatment of fibroids without surgery. The procedure is done by making a small incision in the femoral artery (the artery that runs the length of the upper leg), and feeding a catheter through this artery to the uterine artery that feeds the fibroid. After the catheter is in place, a special liquid solution, which contains tiny particles of plastic or gelatin sponge, is injected into the artery. As the liquid disperses, the particles flow into the smaller veins and capillaries feeding directly into the fibroid and completely cut off the blood supply. Then a clot forms around the particles, keeping them in place. The fibroid, starved of blood, stops growing and will shrink or even go away completely.
Though researchers at the Food and Drug Administration, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and other sources note that the procedure (which has been in general use for roughly twenty years and in use as a treatment for fibroids since the early 1990s) has not been around for long enough to produce sufficient research about success rates or complications, the UFE leaves the uterus intact, and there have been many recorded cases of pregnancy in patients post-treatment.
Before the development of UFE, the most reliable method for treating fibroids while preserving women’s ability to become and stay pregnant was laparotomy or open abdominal surgery. But, as with all open surgery, the recovery period is much longer than for less invasive techniques; likewise, the risk of severe complications during the procedure, and infection during the recovery period is much greater.
