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• Symptoms
• Diagnosis and Tests
• Treatments and Therapies

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Summary

Uterine fibroids are the most common benign tumors in women of childbearing age. Fibroids are made of muscle cells and other tissues that grow in and around the wall of the uterus, or womb. The cause of fibroids is unknown. Risk factors include being African American or being overweight.

Many women with fibroids have no symptoms. If you do have symptoms, they may include:

• Heavy or painful periods or bleeding between periods
• Feeling "full" in the lower abdomen
• Urinating often
• Pain during sex
• Lower back pain
• Reproductive problems, such as infertility, multiple miscarriages or early labor

Your health care provider may find fibroids during a gynecological exam or by using imaging tests. Treatment includes drugs that can slow or stop their growth, or surgery. If you have no symptoms, you may not even need treatment. Many women with fibroids can get pregnant naturally. For those who cannot, infertility treatments may help.

NIH: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

Start Here

• About Uterine Fibroids (Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development)
• Uterine Fibroids (Food and Drug Administration) Also in Spanish
• Uterine Fibroids Fact Sheet (Department of Health and Human Services, Office on Women's Health) Also in Spanish

Symptoms

• What Are the Symptoms of Uterine Fibroids? (Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development) Also in Spanish

Diagnosis and Tests

• How Are Uterine Fibroids Diagnosed? (Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development) Also in Spanish
• Hysteroscopy (National Library of Medicine) Also in Spanish
• Laparoscopy (National Library of Medicine) Also in Spanish
• Pelvic laparoscopy - series (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
• Pelvis Ultrasound (American College of Radiology; Radiological Society of North America) Also in Spanish

Treatments and Therapies

• Hysterectomy (Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development) Also in Spanish
• Medication-Related Treatments for Fibroids (Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development) Also in Spanish
• Myomectomy (Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research) Also in Spanish
• Uterine Fibroid Treatment (American College of Radiology; Radiological Society of North America)

Related Issues

• Period Problems: Fibroids, Endometriosis, and Other Issues (National Institutes of Health) Also in Spanish

Genetics

• Hereditary leiomyomatosis and renal cell cancer: MedlinePlus Genetics (National Library of Medicine)

Clinical Trials

• ClinicalTrials.gov: Leiomyoma (National Institutes of Health)
• ClinicalTrials.gov: Uterine Myomectomy (National Institutes of Health)

Journal Articles References and abstracts from MEDLINE/PubMed (National Library of Medicine)

• Article: A novel nomogram for predicting non-infectious fever in patients following laparoscopic...
• Article: The utility of MRI for the preoperative differential diagnosis of uterine...
• Article: Comparison of different types of single-port laparoscopic surgery in posterior uterine...
• Uterine Fibroids -- see more articles

Find an Expert

• Department of Health and Human Services, Office on Women's Health Also in Spanish
• Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Also in Spanish
• Find an Interventional Radiologist (Society of Interventional Radiology)
• How to Find Find an Ob-Gyn (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists)

Patient Handouts

• Hysteroscopy (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
• Living with uterine fibroids (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
• Uterine artery embolization (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
• Uterine artery embolization - discharge (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
• Uterine fibroids (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish