Word: fibroids
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...Take fibroids, for instance. Parker challenges the common misconception that fibroids can often become cancerous; the actual incidence of cancer cases in women with fibroids is very rare, less than 1 in 1,000. According to Parker, patients should treat fibroids by communicating with their doctor and monitoring how the fibroids make them feel-whether they cause pain, bloating or heavy menstrual bleeding and whether they affect mood and energy levels. For patients who choose to remove fibroids, there are alternatives to hysterectomy: laparoscopic myomectomy eliminates fibroids through half-inch incisions made in the abdominal wall. In fibroid embolization...
...knows precisely what causes fibroid tumors. No one can say why those abnormal muscle-like growths in the uterus are so common, with 40% of women over 35 believed to have them. But this much is certain: fibroids cause an awful lot of misery. Although many fibroids remain small and symptomless, the benign tumors can grow to the size of grapefruits or even cantaloupes. Women with large fibroids often experience unrelenting pressure on the bladder and menstrual bleeding heavy enough to cause anemia. Fibroids are the reason for 30% of the 600,000 hysterectomies performed each year...
Like many women burdened with fibroids, Dorla Smith, 48, found the surgical options unappealing. The Chicago accountant dismissed the idea of a hysterectomy as "out of the question." She didn't want to face major surgery, the loss of her uterus and a prolonged recovery period. And she was uncomfortable with a less invasive option called uterine fibroid embolization (UFE), which involves injecting pellets of glycerin into the arteries that lead to the fibroids, choking off their blood supply. UFE can cause temporary but intensely painful cramps. But after living for three years with occasional pain and a belly swollen...
...medical centers. Smith was treated at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. She lay belly down in a machine designed by an Israeli company, InSightec, for three hours the first day and almost four hours the second day. The device focuses high-frequency ultrasound beams at targeted spots of fibroid tissue, heating them to 180?. Doctors use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to track the volume and temperature of the fibroids after each zap. No incisions are needed. The treated fibroids shrink and become dead tissue, which the body later reabsorbs...
Eight years ago, after she had a hysterectomy at age 42, Roslyn Washington was left with an unexpected side effect. Her doctors, who had recommended removing her ovaries as well as her uterus because of fibroid tumors and an ovarian cyst, had warned her about a lengthy recovery period. But, she says, "I was not aware of the fact that there would be a decrease in my sexual life." That's something of an understatement. Washington, an office manager from Silver Spring, Md., who is married and has a teenage daughter, says that after the surgery she felt no sexual...