How Uterine Fibroids Can Be Treated

How Uterine Fibroids Can Be Treated Jody: I have uterine fibroids and they're huge, and I've been told that I have to have hysterectomy and I just don’t feel ready for hysterectomy, so I am wondering what are my alternatives are. Dr. Lisa Masterson: As a gynecologists, it's what I do all the time. And we used to only have hysterectomy to tread fibroids, because the problem with uterine fibroid which are small, well, they can get large, and that’s when you want to start to treat them. But usually because they're very, very common but they're benign growth on the uterus, so they're not cancerous, that’s the good thing and they don’t usually lead to cancer. But they're very common. Three out of four women will have fibroids now we do more ultrasounds, we’ll find little fibroids and things like that. If you want to have babies, sometimes it can cause preterm labor, so it can cause problems for fertility, as well, but really the indications to have them removed if they're so large that they're going to start compress on things, like your bladder, or the tubes that reach your kidneys, the ureters. Jody: It's happening. Dr. Jim Sears: How big is these, like golf ball size or baseball size? Dr. Lisa Masterson: I've taken out like turkey size, like the 21 week or – they could be huge. Dr. Drew Orgon: It can be one of the largest tumors that can grow in the body. Dr. Lisa Masterson: Absolutely, they just kind of grow up, but they're usually slower growing, and now, we have lots of different options, so really the reasons you want to have that taken out or if it's huge, or if you're having heavy bleeding, causing severe anemia, or it's affecting your lifestyles, so much if you're just bleeding all the time. And now with all the options, there's different invasive and noninvasive options for myomectomies, that’s removal of the fibroids in the uterus. Instead of hysterectomy, which is just removing the uterus. So from myomectomies, you can either have it take it out invasive, using an incision on the abdomen, lower incision like a C-section. Then you make an incision on the fibroid, you dissect out the fibroid, then you just close up that incision. You use the medication to keep it from bleeding, and it goes away. And less invasive procedure is laparoscopy, you inflate the abdomen with CO2, use the special ports to put instruments in, you make an incision again on the fibroid, you shell it out, and it will just heal by itself, you don’t actually have to repair it. And they you just have those three tiny little scars. Now, the reasons that sometimes you can’t have certain procedures are they might not be good for having kids afterwards. There's another thing called uterine artery embolization, and that’s where they put little materials into the arteries that supply the uterus and these keep the blood flow from to the fibroids from coming. And that causes the fibroid to shrink. So interventional radiologist will do this, not a gynecologist, like myself, but they’ll inject these materials into those vessels and that will shrink the fibroids. And that’s really, really, very noninvasive approach to it. The problem with that is it's not very good for someone who wants to have future pregnancies. So there's a lot of different options now, there's also medications, there's also hysteroscopic ways where you can go vaginally and sort of scoop the fibroids out, but not very large. So there's a lot of options now for women with fibroids. Jody: Will they grow back if you remove them once, can they grow bigger? Dr. Lisa Masterson: If you're just removing the fibroids they can grow back. That’s why hysterectomy solve your problems, but not every woman wants their uterus taken out. Jody: Right. Dr. Travis Stock: But there are options, thank you fir for your question, good luck. Jody: Thank you, thank you.