Do All Uterine Fibroids Require Treatment?

The Office on Women’s Health reports that up to 80% of women will have at least one uterine fibroid during their lifetimes. However, in many cases, women may not even realize it because fibroids often do not cause noticeable symptoms.

Top-rated OB/GYN Alan Patterson, MD, located in Coral Springs, Florida, uses state-of-the-art techniques to diagnose and treat uterine fibroids. 

In this post, Dr. Patterson explains what symptoms fibroids can cause and advises on when to seek treatment.

Uterine fibroids 101

Uterine fibroids are muscular tumors that form in the walls of the uterus. Researchers don’t entirely understand why fibroids form. However, they believe it’s likely a combination of hormones and genetic risk factors that predispose some women to develop fibroids.

Fibroids most often develop during a woman’s reproductive years and shrink once she reaches menopause. However, they may also grow larger during pregnancy when estrogen and progesterone levels are elevated.

The vast majority of fibroids are noncancerous (benign) and can range from very small to as large as a grapefruit or even much bigger. Even though most fibroids are benign, they can still cause multiple symptoms. These include:

• Heavy, abnormal, or painful periods, bleeding in between your periods
• A feeling of fullness or bloating in the lower belly
• Pain during sex
• Frequent urination
• Problems emptying your bladder
• Lower back or belly pain
• If they are large or in a certain location they can constrict the ureter so you could end up with a dilated kidney.

Fibroids can cause fertility issues, or a spontaneous early pregnancy loss. And, they can cause complications during pregnancy and increase the necessity for delivery via cesarean, or an early, preterm delivery.

When fibroids require treatment

As mentioned above, fibroids are often so small that they do not cause symptoms and are only detected during a pelvic exam or imaging tests for other conditions.

In such instances, fibroids usually don’t require treatment, although Dr. Patterson will monitor them for future growth.

Even symptomatic fibroids don’t always require treatment. Typically, the decision to initiate treatment is based on various factors, such as :

• Severity of symptoms and their impact on your quality of life
• Number and size of fibroids
• Future pregnancy plans
• How near you are to menopause
• The growth rate of your fibroids

The main way to diagnose fibroids is by doing a pelvic exam and confirming the diagnosis with an in office pelvic ultrasound to fully assess the situation, Dr. Patterson may perform a hysteroscopy to see inside your uterus and to determine if there are fibroids inside the endometrial cavity which need to be removed if they are causing abnormal bleeding or infertility.

Once he ascertains the extent of the fibroids, Dr. Patterson suggests appropriate treatment. If he believes you may be at risk of complications, such as fibroids twisting onto your uterus, he will recommend intervention.

Treatment approaches include:

• Endometrial Myosure: a treatment in which a small cutting blade is inserted into the endometrium via hysteroscope and the fibroid or fibroids inside the cavity are shaved away.
• Laparoscopic myomectomy: a procedure in which Dr. Patterson makes a couple of small incisions in the abdomen, and then removes the fibroids with special instruments.
• Hysterectomy: This entails removing a patient’s uterus which is sometimes necessary if the fibroid is too large or there are too many fibroids, and obviously much more common if fertility is no longer desired.
• Also they are newer medicines that can shrink the size of fibroids.

Learn more about fibroid management

If you have uterine fibroids or are experiencing symptoms,  book an appointment with Dr. Patterson online or by calling the office at 954-204-3650.