National Uterine Fibroid Foundation

Introduction

Approximately 1.6 million women are newly diagnosed with uterine fibroids each year in the United States.

While the vast majority of these women do not need or seek out immediate treatment for their benign, asymptomatic fibroids, somewhere between 250,000 and 400,000 will indeed find they need treatment for uterine fibroids causing a wide range of symptoms such as abnormal bleeding, urinary incontinence, bulk and/or pelvic pain, and infertility.

Uterine fibroids have been documented for well over 150 years in published medical journals. Even so, very little progress has been made to determine the cause and a cure for this disease. (See: Management of Uterine Fibroids, Evidence Report/Technology Assessment 34 *) As a result, 37% of all women in the United States undergo hysterectomy by age 60 -- the vast majority of them due to uterine fibroids. This medical travesty will continue to remain a part of life for hundreds of thousands of women who develop symptomatic fibroids each year if more research isn't pursued to help unravel the mystery of this disease.

Join us in our efforts to learn more and fight this disease. No woman should have her life threatened or her Quality of Life compromised due to disease and/or inadequate treatment options for conditions of her reproductive system.

Treating the symptoms of disease does not cure the disease, it's merely disease management. Thus far in medicine, disease management for health issues associated with the female reproductive system is handled rather poorly as there simply isn't enough information available to do it well. Current treatments we have available are by no means a "cure" and are woefully inadequate and inconsistently offered and applied.

Hormonal therapy placing a woman's body into a menopausal state is not a "cure."

Hysterectomy is not a "cure."

Myomectomy is not a "cure."

Myolysis is not a "cure."

Endometrial Ablation is not a "cure."

Uterine Artery Embolization is not a "cure."

We want answers. We want better management of symptoms and more refined treatments but, most of all, we simply want a cure.

Donate. Volunteer. Sign up for the NUFF newsletter. Advocate for better education to women and physicians on this issue. Get involved and do it now. Future generations of women in this nation -- and around the world -- are depending on your help.

* Management of Uterine Fibroids . Summary, Evidence Report/Technology Assessment: Number 34. AHRQ Publication No. 01-E051, January 2001. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/clinic/epcsums/utersumm.htm