What Is the Uterine Fibroid Embolization Procedure Like? (1:10)
Uterine fibroid embolization (UFE) is a non-surgical procedure, in which catheters are directed through the uterine arteries. In this video, John Lipman, MD, interventional radiologist, details UFE and the benefits it offers.
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It's a procedure that's done completely without any surgery, the approach is like a heart catheterization. So we enter the body to get into each uterine artery. You can virtualize the uterine artery on each side of the body as branches of a tree, and the tree branches in getting smaller and smaller branches to get out to the leaves.
The fibroids are the leaves, and I can get into each of the uterine arteries separately with a little tiny catheter and flow direct tiny particles that will go out to the fibroids and cut the blood supply off to all the fibroids in the uterus. Without a blood supply the fibroids will soften and shrink, and as they do a woman's symptoms disappear.
So you can treat an entire uterus, it takes about 45 minutes. The patient will then recover in the hospital for a brief amount of time and go home on that same day with just a Band-Aid at the top of her right leg where we went in. So it's non-surgical, it's safer, less invasive, shorter recovery, and importantly a woman gets to keep her uterus.
John Lipman, MD, is an internationally recognized expert in the treatment of uterine fibroids. He has given over 200 lectures on Women's Health topics at Harvard, Stanford, Vanderbilt and Yale Medical Centers.
