"Nonsurgical" fibroid treatment: Research shows improved sexual desire, function

I wouldn't call this non-invasive. I guess they are contrasting it with cutting out the fibroids,or cauterizing them. A following post on the same kind of treatment for obesity used the term "nonsurgical" in the headline, but the more accurate term "minimally invasive" in the first line of the post.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-04/soir-nft040116.php

Public Release: 3-Apr-2016
Nonsurgical fibroid treatment: Research shows improved sexual desire, function
Women treated with uterine fibroid embolization also report better overall quality of life
Society of Interventional Radiology

Women who underwent a nonsurgical, image-guided treatment, uterine fibroid embolization (UFE), for the treatment of uterine fibroids experienced improved sexual function and a higher overall quality of life. The research, part of a French multicenter study, presented at the Society of Interventional Radiology's Annual Scientific Meeting, also found the vast majority of women treated with UFE sustained improvement for more than a year.

"Women with uterine fibroids often experience troubling symptoms and significant discomfort, which diminish their sex lives and reduce their quality of life. These symptoms include heavy menstrual bleeding, pain during sexual intercourse, pelvic pain and back and leg pain," said Helene Vernhet-Kovacsik, M.D., the study's lead researcher and an interventional radiologist in the department of vascular radiology at Centre Hospitalier Universitaire, Montpellier in France.

•••••

Researchers from 25 centers throughout France conducted a prospective study involving 264 women who underwent UFE to treat benign fibroid growths. A common condition, fibroids develop in the uterine muscular wall, varying in size from a quarter of an inch to larger than a cantaloupe. Most women with uterine fibroids also have more than one.

During UFE, an interventional radiologist makes a tiny nick in the skin in the groin or wrist and inserts a catheter into the artery. Using real-time imaging, the doctor guides the catheter into the uterine arteries and then releases tiny particles, the size of grains of sand, to block the blood flow that supplies oxygen and nutrients to the fibroid tumors, causing them to shrink and die.

•••••

At the beginning of the study, 189 of the 264 women suffered abnormally heavy menstrual bleeding and 171 experienced pain, among other symptoms associated with pelvic pressure. When researchers followed up with participants a year after treatment, only 39 of those 189 continued to experience abnormal bleeding and only 42 of the 171 women still dealt with pelvic pressure.

Nearly eight in 10 (78.8 percent) women who completed self-reported assessments at the one-year mark demonstrated improvement in sexual function, including pain, desire, arousal and satisfaction--as measured by the FSFI. Additionally, about nine in 10 (90.2 percent) women who completed the UFE-QoL assessment reported a better overall quality of life, with average scores increasing from 45 at treatment to 71 one year after. UFE-QoL scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating a better health-related quality of life.

•••••