NICHD
National Institute
of Child Health and
Human Development National Institute of Health
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Public Health Service
National Institutes of Health
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
| Fast Facts: | | | | Common name: | Uterine Fibroids |
| | Medical name: | Uterine Leiomyoma (pronounced you-ter-in lie-oh-my-oh-mah) |
| | Number of women affected: | At least 25 percent of women in the United States have clinically symptomatic fibroids, which means they have symptoms that are typical of fibroids (Crum 1999); estimates suggest fibroids could affect as many as 77 percent of women in the United States (Cramer & Patel 1990). |
| | Common symptoms: | May include heavy periods, bleeding between periods, pelvic pain or “fullness,” reproductive problems, including infertility and multiple miscarriages. |
| | Common treatments: | Some women do not receive treatment because they do not have symptoms. Other treatments include: pain medication, medical therapy, and surgery to remove just the fibroid, to cut off the blood supply to the fibroid, or to remove the entire uterus.
Doctors are exploring less-invasive surgeries and hormone therapy as other options. |
| | Does this disorder affect fertility/childbearing? | Most women who have fibroids do not have problems with fertility and are able to get pregnant. In some cases, fibroids can prevent a woman from getting pregnant naturally. |
|
Uterine fibroids are the most common, non-cancerous tumors in women of childbearing age. They are the cause of more than 200,000 hysterectomies every year (Easterday et al 1983). They have no known cause and only a few treatment options. Uterine fibroids not only affect the women who have them, but they also impact the partners, spouses, and families of these women, sometimes to a great degree. Despite the fact that they may affect one-quarter of all the women in the United States, fibroids continue to baffle doctors and scientists.
The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), is trying to learn more about uterine fibroids, through research into their causes and treatments. As part of this research, NICHD scientists are exploring genetics, hormones, the immune system, and environmental factors that may play a role in starting the growth of fibroids and/or in continuing that growth. This information could lead to a cure for uterine fibroids that does not involve taking out the uterus. Someday, health care providers may even be able to prevent uterine fibroids from growing at all. |
