Treatment typically involves a hysterectomy that excises the tumors along with the patient's uterus.
The University of Michigan research, however, offers hope of a non-surgical alternative that would leave a patient's uterus, and fertility, intact. U-M physicians, administering DNA tailored to inhibit tumor growth, have effectively killed human leiomyoma cells in laboratory tests and suppressed leiomyoma tumors in lab rats. The significance of this development is enormous, because fibroids are the most common tumor in humans and hysterectomy is the most common surgical procedure performed in this country. One in three American women undergo a hysterectomy by age 65, approximately half of which are performed to alleviate medical problems caused by leiomyoma tumors. Our treatment had a pronounced effect on them, suggesting it may ultimately be feasible to treat uterine leiomyomas with gene therapy.