Can I get uterine fibroids again even if I've been treated for them before?

Watch as Obstetrician and gynecologist Dr. Evelyn Minaya discusses if you can get uterine fibroids again, even if you've been treated for them before. health.

Yes. There are global treatments and local treatments for fibroids. The 2 global treatments are hysterectomy and UFE. Local treatments for fibroids include surgical myomectomy (surgically removing of a portion of the fibroid burden) and more recently MRI guided focused ultrasound (MRIgFUS). If a women undergoes hysterectomy, she will never have fibroids again. The vast majority of women treated with UFE (particularly over 40 years of age) will never deal with fibroids again because it treats all of the fibroids that a women has at the time of the procedure (i.e. a global therapy). Surgical myomectomy is a procedure, which attempts to remove a number of the fibroids from the uterus surgically. Because fibroids are commonly numerous in the uterus, living fibroids are often left behind that cannot be removed surgically, because the surgeon needs to ensure an intact uterus at the end of the operation. In fact, there is a small percentage of patient's that undergo myomectomy that will wake up with a hysterectomy (2%-5%). The fibroids that remain after the surgery will grow over time and often lead to a recurrence of symptoms. MRIgFUS is an innovative procedure that can target (usually no more than 3) fibroids with a special MRI machine. The machine is directed by the physician to deliver a beam of focused ultrasound energy the size of a jellybean, which will destroy the fibroid but leave the adjacent normal tissue unharmed (analogous to burning a spot on a leaf with a magnifying lens). Many jellybean spots are delivered to treat the entire fibroid, and therefore currently the procedure times can be rather lengthy (3-4 hours). However, once the procedure is over the patient can leave the treatment center and can resume normal activities the following day. The biggest obstacle facing this treatment modality currently is the paucity of insurance companies that will cover this procedure. None of the other treatments have this limitation.