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Uterine Fibroids
Their Affects on Fertility, Pregnancy and Beyond
By Kelly Burgess
Medication: While medications can't prevent or permanently shrink fibroids, some can help reduce symptoms. Low-dose birth control pills reduce periods from 13 a year to four. This is significant, Dr. Parker says, in women who have such heavy bleeding that they're confined to their homes for days. Other medication options are Lupron and Synarel, which work by temporarily shutting off the ovaries' ability to make estrogen and progesterone so that menstrual periods cease. Because of the risks of long-term use, these two medications are temporary solutions, used to ease a woman's symptoms prior to menopause, to prepare her for surgery or to deal with anemia.
Uterine Fibroid Embolization: Barely a decade old, this non-surgical procedure is generally performed by an interventional radiologist. A small incision is made in the groin directly over the artery carrying blood to the leg. A catheter is then guided into the blood vessels to the uterus and blood flow is blocked with small plastic particles. The fibroids begin to die immediately and continue to shrink for three to six months. Dr. McLucas was one of the doctors that introduced this procedure to the United States and is one of the few gynecologists who performs it himself.
"Myomectomy was the traditional therapy for someone who wanted to preserve her uterus either for fertility or just because [she] wanted to keep [her] uterus," Dr. McLucas says. "From my point of view, UFE is a much more elegant way to treat fibroids because the uterus is left intact."
According to Dr. McLucas, studies show that UFE works nine times out of 10, and seems to leave a good prognosis for long-term fertility. At least 30 percent, and maybe as many of 50 percent, of women who want to have children are able to do so after UFE.
