BDO: What are some treatment options for fibroids?
Dr. Linda Bradley: Different treatment options for a woman can include complete removal of the uterus and that’s definitive surgery which means complete removal of the uterus called a hysterectomy. That means no periods, no babies and no chance of fibroids coming back. That is surgery done in many different ways in terms of instruments.
The other surgical procedures are conserving the uterus with just removal of the fibroids. The medical term for that is myomectomy. There are some new merging technologies that use needles and radio frequency energy that may sort of zap, desiccate, burn fibroids and those are also options for women. There are also techniques performed by radiologists, not a GYN doctor or surgeon that basically blocks the flow of blood, we call the uterine fibroid embolization, UFE.
Scientifically we use the name UAE, uterine artery embolization where a radiologist blocks the flow of blood to fibroids and starves them and the fibroids shrink. There’s also the use of MRI technology with ultrasounds that desiccates, dehydrates fibroids that’s done in a machine and can also be offered for women with fibroid-related symptoms.
Lastly, there are medications that can be used, pills, medicated IUD that can be used depending on the size of the fibroid and location to also help fibroid-related symptoms. For women, there are many options ranging from extirpative surgery which means removal of the uterus to what we call uterine spearing procedures. Those are the things we currently know about
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