Who Is at Risk for Getting Uterine Fibroids?
Saturday, February 6th, 2010Uterine fibroids are benign (noncancerous) tumors that develop on or inside the muscle tissue of the uterus. Approximately 20-40% of women 35 years and over have fibroid tumors. Up to 20 to 50 % of all women develop fibroids at some time in their lives. The majority of these harmless muscle tissue tumors tend to develop inside the uterus, and can be the source of medical problems and discomfort.
Uterine fibroids could threaten any woman at any age. Never the less, fibroids are most common in women of childbearing age, especially in women somewhere between the ages of 30 and 40. Fibroids are more-or-less common. Some studies would suggest that possibly three out of four women currently have fibroids although they will often be undiagnosed because they result in no problems.
In fact, if your doctor searched hard enough, he would probably locate a small fibroid in practically any woman. Nevertheless, certain women are at higher risk of producing uterine fibroids. Women somewhere between the ages of 20 and 50 are more likely to grow large fibroids.
Women of African-American descent are also more likely to produce fibroids. A handful of statistics signal that approximately80% of African-American women will develop uterine fibroids.
While some women do not suffer any of the symptoms of fibroids, the location and size of fibroid tumors could cause symptoms that could affect a woman’s quality of life.
Typically, fibroids are discovered by abdominal or pelvic examination or pelvic ultrasound. To verify a diagnosis, your physician may use imaging technologies. Systems such as ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), X-rays or CT “Cat” - scans are common. Sometimes the only real way to verify the diagnosis is through surgery.
Most fibroids don’t create medical problems and no treatment is required. In other cases, however, these non-cancerous growths can cause problems. Fibroids symptoms include excessive uterine bleeding, pelvic pain and cramping, backaches, sexual dysfunction, and urinary problems. The symptoms normally come to be more frequent and more severe with the growth of the fibroid, to the stage where some type of fibroids treatment becomes necessary.
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