Ultrasound Surgery Tested On Fibroids
Ultrasound Procedure Involves No Incisions
BOSTON -- Most adult women have them, but uterine fibroids only cause symptoms in about one in every four women.
What are fibroids?
For Marylyn Burridge, the symptoms began just before menopause.
"Anyone that goes through the mess of having a lot of bleeding is very concerned and wants to put an end to it," Burridge said.
Putting an end to it usually means a hysterectomy, or surgery to remove the fibroid itself.
But a new procedure is on the horizon. It's called focused ultrasound surgery, or FUS, and involves no incision at all.
The patient lies on her stomach in a special magnetic resonance imaging machine. After the MRI imaging finds the exact location of the fibroid, the ultrasound waves are pulsated into it.
"It takes all of the ultrasound waves and brings them together at a certain point and that raises the temperature in the fibroid and will in turn lead to the destruction of that tissue," said Dr. Elizabeth Steward of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
FUS has been tried only in a handful of women so far and appears to be safe. Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital will soon be conducting a larger study to examine its effectiveness.
"We've seen that women are very happy with this technique. They're able to go home later on that day, (and) they don't need pain medication as they usually need to have after fibroid treatments," Steward said.
Burridge, who had her fibroids surgically removed, said that a noninvasive treatment like this would be a great option.
"That's the best of all worlds," Burridge said.
Copyright 2002 by WSCUTV.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.