Their Symptoms and Treatment Fibroid tumors of the uterus are very common, but for most women, they either do not cause symptoms or cause only minor symptoms. Fibroids can cause very heavy menstrual bleeding, clotting and pelvic pain, leading many women to seek treatment. Fibroids often fail to respond to medical therapy and then surgical procedures are often recommended.
Uterine fibroids are the most common tumors of the female genital tract.
While fibroids do not always cause symptoms, their size and location can lead to problems for some women, including pain and heavy bleeding. The exact causes for fibroid development are unclear, but researchers have linked them to both a genetic predisposition and a subsequent development of susceptibility to hormone stimulation. Women may have a genetic predisposition to fibroid development and then subsequently develop factors that allow fibroids to grow under the influence of a number of hormones. This would explain why certain ethnic groups or racial groups are more likely to develop fibroids and also why there tends to be genetic predisposition in some families. In some cases they can cause the uterus to grow to the size of a five-month pregnancy and the woman looks as though she is pregnant.