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-- WITH PHOTO -- TO HEALTH, MEDICAL, AND NATIONAL EDITORS:
With Flip of Wrist, Interventional Radiologists Treat Uterine Fibroids
Local interviews and medical illustrations are available by contacting SIR's communications department staff: Ellen Acconcia, SIR manager, website and communications, eacconcia@SIRweb.org, (703) 460-5582, or Maryann Verrillo, SIR director of communications and public relations, mverrillo@SIRweb.org, (703) 460-5572.
FAIRFAX, Va., March 5, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Interventional
radiologists have devised a new way to access a woman's fibroids-by
flipping her wrist and treating via an arm not groin artery-to
nonsurgically shrink noncancerous growths in the muscular wall of the
uterus. Researchers found this to be less painful and traumatic for
women, allowing them to immediately sit up and move after uterine
fibroid embolization (UFE)-with no overnight stay, according to a
March article in the Society of Interventional Radiology's flagship
publication, the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology.
"Improving patient care and providing advanced treatment options are
always on the minds of interventional radiologists. And this could be
a game changer for image-guided minimally invasive treatments," said
Aaron M. Fischman, M.D., an interventional radiologist and assistant
professor of radiology and surgery at Mount Sinai Medical Center in
New York. Mount Sinai researchers studied the access treatment favored
by cardiologists for coronary interventions-and applied it to a
minimally invasive treatment for women's uterine fibroids. By flipping
access for treatment from the artery in the groin to the artery in the
wrist, the researchers said that the women experienced less pain and
trauma than the traditional groin technique-opening the door to
potential savings in health care costs. Complications related to
bleeding at the puncture site are also significantly reduced using
this novel approach. Patients are able to walk immediately after
treatment, which dramatically improves their experience. "This is just
the beginning," he added, indicating that this technique may also pave
the way toward improving other interventional radiology
treatments-including those for cancer patients.
Fischman said that his team wanted to explore options that were more
comfortable and beneficial for patients undergoing UFE, a nonsurgical
interventional radiology treatment for women that cuts off blood flow
to painful fibroids to kill the noncancerous tumors. "Few reports in
the literature have explored this application to interventional
radiology treatments. This is the first reported use of transradial
access for UFE," Fischman added.
Uterine fibroids, which affect up to 40 percent of all women 35 and
older, can cause prolonged, heavy menstrual bleeding that can be
severe enough to cause anemia or require transfusion; disabling pelvic
pain and pressure; urinary frequency; pain during intercourse; and
miscarriage. Typically, interventional radiologists have delivered
treatment directly to the fibroid-by threading a catheter through a
woman's femoral artery in her thigh. In this new approach, the
interventional radiologists threaded a catheter through one of two
arteries in a woman's left wrist. They then made a tiny nick in the
skin, less than one-fourth of an inch, and inserted a catheter into
the artery. Using real-time imaging, the doctor guided the catheter
through the artery and then released tiny particles, the size of
grains of sand, into the uterine arteries that supply blood to the
fibroid tumor. This blocked the blood flow to the fibroid tumor and
caused it to shrink and symptoms to subside.
Women seeking UFE at Mount Sinai were presented both access options,
said Fischman. His team treated 29 women (ages 23-56, some with benign
tumors the size of a grapefruit) from March through October 2013.
Fischman said that their findings suggest that wrist (transradial) UFE
offers a safe and effective alternative to groin (transfemoral) UFE.
He indicated that a much larger prospective, randomized trial is
needed to validate conclusions about specific benefits of this novel
approach. He noted that interventional radiologists will need to be
trained in this new access. In addition to presenting this study,
Fischman will be leading workshops on this new technology at the
Society of Interventional Radiology's Annual Scientific Meeting March
22-27 in San Diego.
Nonsurgical UFE is a major advance in women's health, and women should
be aware of all of their fibroid treatment options, said Fischman. UFE
is widely available and covered by medical insurance. SIR identifies
interventional radiologists with expertise in this area in its online
doctor directory. More information about SIR, interventional
radiologists, uterine fibroids and UFE can be found online at
www.SIRweb.org.
"Uterine Artery Embolization Using a Transradial Approach: Initial
Experience and Technique," which appears in the March issue of the
Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology , was co-written by
Fischman, along with Neil J. Resnick, M.D.; Edward Kim, M.D,; Rahul S.
Patel, M.D.; Robert A. Lookstein, M.D., FSIR; and F. Scott Nowakowski,
M.D., FSIR , all at Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, N.Y. All are
SIR members.
About the Society of Interventional Radiology Interventional
radiologists are physicians who specialize in minimally invasive,
targeted treatments. They offer the most in-depth knowledge of the
least invasive treatments available coupled with diagnostic and
clinical experience across all specialties. They use X-ray, MRI and
other imaging to advance a catheter in the body, such as in an artery,
to treat at the source of the disease internally. As the inventors of
angioplasty and the catheter-delivered stent, which were first used in
the legs to treat peripheral arterial disease, interventional
radiologists pioneered minimally invasive modern medicine. Many
conditions that once required surgery can be treated less invasively
by interventional radiologists. Interventional radiology treatments
offer less risk, less pain and less recovery time compared to open
surgery. Visit www.SIRweb.org.
Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20100127/SIRLOGO
SOURCE Society of Interventional Radiology
-0- 03/05/2014
/CONTACT: Maryann Verrillo, (703) 460-5572; Ellen Acconcia, (703) 460-5582; comm@SIRweb.org
/Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20100127/SIRLOGO
/Web Site: http://www.sirweb.org
CO: Society of Interventional Radiology
ST: Virginia
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0000 03/05/2014 14:24:00 EDT http://www.prnewswire.com
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