Remove Fibroid Tumors, Save Uterus
Myomectomy Is Viable Alternative
NEW YORK -- Many women are delaying childbearing until the very years when fibroids tend to cause the most trouble, and a sterilizing operation isn't very attractive.
But there is an alternative.
Kaye McKenzie is a woman who takes care of herself. She works out four times a week and is a vegetarian who doesn't drink or smoke. Yet, at least once a month, she used to feel pretty lousy.
"I started having really heavy periods, a lot of painful cramping," said McKenzie. "I felt them in my stomach, felt the biggest one. I can feel it, and just a lot of heavy bleeding, being tired."
McKenzie's symptoms were caused by uterine fibroids. They are benign tumors that can grow in a variety of places in the uterus or womb and are very common in women of childbearing age.
"(It is) very common in ... black women," said Dr. Millicent Comrie of Long Island College Hospital. "They are in the general population anywhere from 22 to 50 percent. But, in the black population, you can see up to 70 percent of women with fibroids."
If medical treatment fails to control the problem, the next step is usually surgical: a hysterectomy. But like most young women, McKenzie wanted an alternative.
One recent alternative is called embolization, where particles are injected into the arteries feeding the uterus, starving the fibroids. But that procedure may cause infertility, so McKenzie turned to Comrie for a procedure called a myomectomy.
"A myomectomy is removing the fibroids and closing the cavity left back from the fibroids, making sure that the cavity is checked," said Comrie. "The cavity, the lining of the uterus, is checked to make sure there are no fibroids remaining."
Myomectomies have been around for some time. But improved surgical techniques have made them a more viable alternative. The operation can be long with much blood loss, especially given that some of the fibroids are removed. But the end result makes it worth it for many women.
"If I want to get pregnant and I want to have a child, I have a chance to have a successful pregnancy and not have any problems," McKenzie said.
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