MONDAY, May 1 (HealthDay News) -- A new technique, manual interleaved MR-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS), allows treatment of a fibroid in 60 percent of the time needed to treat a same-size fibroid with conventional MRgFUS, according to research presented this week at the annual meeting of the American Roentgen Ray Society in Vancouver, Canada.
George A. Holland, M.D., of the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Mass., and colleagues studied 14 women with symptomatic fibroids. MRI was used to target and control the sonications used during thermal ablation of fibroids using noninvasive ultrasound.
The researchers found that manual interleaved MRgFUS provided up to 127 sonications during a three-hour treatment compared to the 60 to 70 sonications provided by conventional MRgFUS. After six months of follow-up, they observed no serious adverse side effects and determined that 12 of the 14 patients had marked improvements in symptoms.
"Using this technique, women with fibroids can be treated faster and women that would not be considered for the treatment because of the size of their fibroid can now also be treated," Holland said in a statement.
Abstract (#021)
