Fibroid Embolization - What's the effect?

Women with painful fibroids can get long-term relief without surgery, a study of 1,278 women said. All of them underwent uterine fibroid embolization (UFE, also known as uterine artery embolization or UAE). Three years after the minimally invasive procedure, fewer than 15% of women needed surgery or a repeat UFE.

The study was led by UFE pioneer Scott C. Goodwin, MD, who chairs the department of radiological sciences at the University of California, Irvine. Goodwin, who prefers the more precise term UAE, says the procedure offers "very good" long-term outcomes. The quality of living after UFE is good. And you have quicker period of recovery and fewer complications than with the surgical alternatives," he informed WebMD.

Which is more, Goodwin pointed out that the women in the study were treated at different medical centers, not just those tremendously skilled at performing UFE. He mentioned that it was especially important. You can conclude that UFE done by someone with the correct credentials will have the same effect wherever it is done.

While 86% of the women who chose UFE said they'd recommend it to their friend or family member, not all of them get ride of all the symptoms. Three years after the procedure, approximately 13% of the women underwent surgery for fibroid symptoms and another 2% underwent another UFE. That rate is comparable to the standard seen in patients who undergo myomectomy, surgical removal of fibroids. Each year after myomectomy, about 5% of patients see their fibroids return.

Throughout the world, some 25,000 women undergo UFE each year. Goodwin introduced it to the U.S. in 1996. Nevertheless the procedure is all the more considered "developmental" by many gynecologists, including Bryan Cowan, MD, chair of the University of Mississippi Medical Centre department of gynecology and a spokesman for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. In his opinion the three-year follow-up is short. He often says to his patients that he can take their fibroids out but he cannot change them. After myomectomy, one-fourth of them will see fibroids come back -- but that is five or six years later. So, according to Bryan Cowan, these people in the Goodwin read have not entered that time threshold.

I’d like to mention here that fibroids are benign tumors -- not cancers -- that arise inside the uterus; doctors ring them uterine myomas or leiomyomata. As a rule, they normally don't cause symptoms. But when they do, women may suffer excessive or painful bleeding during menstruation, bleeding between menstrual periods, abdominal pressure, frequent urination, pain during sex, and or low back pain. Removal of the uterus -- hysterectomy -- is the only sure way to stop fibroids and to make sure they never come back. Yet, hysterectomy results in sterility. It is a fact that fibroids are the actuation for up to 40% of the 150,000 to 200,000 hysterectomies performed each year in the U.S.