Fertility and Uterine Fibroid Embolization (UFE)
Although fibroid disease usually affects women who have already had their families, we often see women who are planning on starting a family in the future. One of the biggest concerns about any fibroid treatment is fertility after treatment.
First, fibroid disease is not a contraindication for becoming pregnant. Often women with small fibroids go on to deliver healthy, full term babies. If their fibroids are small and do not affect the lining of the uterus, no treatment for young women is needed.
However, when fibroids become much larger, they compress the normal uterus cavity making it difficult to complete a healthy full term pregnancy. Often women will have miscarriages due to their fibroid disease. Once this occurs, treatment is an important next step.
Fibroid embolization is commonly performed on women who later go on to deliver healthy babies. The American College of Gynecology (ACOG) has reviewed UFE for young women and concluded that: successful pregnancies are seen in women who otherwise have high infertility rates (women with fibroids).
(From The American College of Gynecology Clinical Guidelines)
Although further research is needed to clearly say what the fertility rate is in women with fibroid disease, and then after UFE, almost 50% of women become pregnant after UFE if desired. Although if one large fibroid is causing symptoms and myomectomy could be a good option, if there are multiple fibroids causing symptoms, UFE is an obvious choice over hysterectomy on preserving fertility.
Dr. Harris discusses a little bit about what we tell women at The Fibroid Treatment Center regarding fertility and UFE in the video below.