How do you know it is a fibroid vs. a cancerous growth?
I get an MRI on all of my patients before proceeding to UFE.
If I see a uterine abnormality or any other abnormality in your pelvis (of say, your cervix or your ovaries) that I think you should get surgery for, I will tell you and refer you to an appropriate gynecologist to help you.
But the vast majority of the time, the MRI shows that the issue is just fibroids, or fibroids plus adenomyosis (another condition that mimics fibroids but also responds well to UFE).
We don't actually biopsy the fibroids to make sure, as there is just a 1 in 1,000 chance that a mass that looks like a fibroid on MRI is really a sarcoma (malignant fibroid).
I order a follow-up MRI at 3 months for all of my UFE patients to make sure the fibroids responded appropriately after UFE...as UFE will not kill a sarcoma. Seeing that it (or them, as most women have more than one) died tells us for sure they were just fibroids.
If I see a uterine abnormality or any other abnormality in your pelvis (of say, your cervix or your ovaries) that I think you should get surgery for, I will tell you and refer you to an appropriate gynecologist to help you.
But the vast majority of the time, the MRI shows that the issue is just fibroids, or fibroids plus adenomyosis (another condition that mimics fibroids but also responds well to UFE).
We don't actually biopsy the fibroids to make sure, as there is just a 1 in 1,000 chance that a mass that looks like a fibroid on MRI is really a sarcoma (malignant fibroid).
I order a follow-up MRI at 3 months for all of my UFE patients to make sure the fibroids responded appropriately after UFE...as UFE will not kill a sarcoma. Seeing that it (or them, as most women have more than one) died tells us for sure they were just fibroids.
