Diagnosing and Treating Fibroids

July is National Fibroids Awareness Month

While 80% of women experience uterine fibroids by the age of 50, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), many women don’t seek out knowledge or treatment for the issue. Here are some commonly asked questions:

What are fibroids? Fibroids are abnormal growths that develop on or in a woman’s uterus. They’re essentially noncancerous tumors that develop during a woman’s childbearing years and can bring about a series of painful symptoms or no symptoms at all.

How are fibroids diagnosed? Most fibroids are diagnosed when a physician feels an enlarged uterus during an internal gynecologic exam. Fibroids can be confirmed by pelvic ultrasound (sonogram), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or computed tomography scan (CT), all of which are painless procedures.

What are the treatment options at Inova Alexandria Hospital (IAH)? The IAH Fibroid Program is a multidisciplinary program for comprehensive fibroid care. Treatment options that preserve the uterus may include hysteroscopy, myomectomy or uterine fibroid embolization. The latter is a nonsurgical, minimally invasive procedure that involves an interventional radiologist identifying which arteries are supplying blood to the fibroids and blocking blood flow to them. A treatment for permanently resolving fibroids is a hysterectomy, which involves removing the entire uterus.

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Find Out About Fibroids
Visit Fibroid Treatment or call 703.504.3326 to get more information.