Myoma of uterus is a common disease in women of child-bearing age. Its clinical manifestations include increased menstrual volume, prolonged menstruation, lower abdominal mass, increased leucorrhea and compression symptoms, which seriously affect the quality of life of the patients. About 20-40% of women of childbearing age will develop uterine fibroids, accounting for about 52% of all benign gynecologic tumors. There are a variety of treatment methods, the drug treatment is difficult to achieve satisfactory clinical effect, often only for adjuvant therapy before surgery or near menopause patients; therefore have obvious symptoms usually treated by surgery. In the United States, 600 thousand cases of hysterectomy are performed each year, in which uterine fibroids are the most common cause of hysterectomy. Surgical treatment of uterine fibroids have a variety of hysterectomy, including: abdominal myomectomy, hysteroscopic myomectomy, laparoscopic myomectomy and minimally invasive treatment of uterine artery embolization - etc.. Because the removal of the uterus can lead to organ loss and the imbalance of sex hormones, not only seriously destroy the physiological state of patients, but also have an immeasurable impact on the patient's psychology. The uterus is not only a reproductive organ, but also has complex endocrine function; hysterectomy may cause the decline of ovarian function, sex hormone secretion disorder, cause amenorrhea, abnormal lipid metabolism, immune function disorder. The non pregnant, younger age, the requirement of preserving fertility or comorbidities, difficult to tolerate surgery or fear of surgery, choose a can retain the uterus, minimally invasive and can achieve the desired results.
High intensity focused ultrasound (High, Intensity, Focused, Ultrasound, HIFU), also known as "high-intensity focused ultrasound knife", brings new hope for patients with uterine fibroids. HIFU is a new non-invasive surgical technique developed and developed gradually in the past ten years. Its principle is to use ultrasonic through human tissue, and can focus on specific target characteristics, the energy gathered enough strength, can achieve instantaneous high temperature, damage the target tissues, the histopathology of coagulative necrosis. HIFU has been applied in the clinical treatment of solid tumors such as liver cancer, breast cancer, bone tumors and soft tissue tumors, and has achieved remarkable results. HIFU treatment has no surgery, no bleeding, no tumor size, shape, faster postoperative recovery, the overall cost of treatment is low, activating the body's immune system, no radiation, no chemical injury, repeated treatment, sectional treatment etc. In the HIFU treatment of uterine fibroids, a large number of basic and clinical studies have been carried out by scholars from various countries. Because the HIFU is in the treatment of ultrasound monitoring, in general, who can show the uterine myoma by ultrasound can be treated by HIFU.
HIFU treatment of fibroids mainly has the following advantages:
1, noninvasive: no surgery, no bleeding;
2 、 no anesthesia: under the condition of intravenous static pain, it can avoid all kinds of side effects caused by operation anesthesia;
3. Keep the uterus;
4, treatment time is short: usually 1~3 hours can complete uterine fibroids inactivation;
5, postoperative recovery fast: after surgery can be ground activities. Hospitalization is only 2 - 3 days, or outpatient treatment.
Studies have shown that after HIFU treatment of fibroids, menorrhagia associated with uterine fibroids and pelvic pain symptoms are eliminated or improved, and there is no obvious side effect, and the quality of life has improved significantly. The safety of HIFU treatment is high, which is a prominent advantage of HIFU treatment. Although the HIFU after treatment, whether the effect of no bulk case reports and related research, but the existing literature reports of pregnancy, HIFU treated women to normal pregnancy, and a case report of a 36 year old symptomatic endometriosis patients treated with HIFU in normal pregnancy and vaginal delivery. There is reason to believe that in patients with uterine fibroids after HIFU treatment, patients at childbearing age are still able to pregnancy and fertility.