Conventional, partial UFE appear safe, effective for women with fibroids who want to conceive
TUESDAY, June 13, 2017 (HealthDay News) — Uterine fibroid embolization (UFE) can treat women with fibroids without jeopardizing their future fertility, according to research published online June 13 in Radiology.
The study included 359 women with fibroids and/or adenomyosis who were unable to conceive.
Over a median follow-up of 69 months, 149 women who received UFE or a partial UFE became pregnant one or more times. Of those, 131 gave birth to a total of 150 babies. It was the first pregnancy for 85.5 percent of the women who gave birth, the researchers added. Clinical success for fibroid-related symptoms was 78.6 percent, with lower complication rates for partial UFE compared with conventional UFE.
UFE could become the first-line treatment for women with fibroids who want to get pregnant, particularly for those with numerous or very large fibroids, study author Joao Pisco, M.D., Ph.D., director of interventional radiology at the Saint Louis Hospital in Libson, Portugal, told HealthDay. With a fibroid recurrence rate of more than 60 percent among these women, UFE might be an important option, Pisco said.
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