MRgFUS

MR Guided Focused Ultrasound
This is the newest technology being advocated as a therapy for fibroids. The patient spends several hours lying on her stomach in a special MRI unit while high-intensity ultrasound waves are used to kill fibroid tissue a portion at a time, similar to the shock wave treatments done for kidney stones.

The advantages of MRgFUS are that it is noninvasive and there is little or no recovery period. The disadvantages are that the therapy can only treat specific fibroids (rather than the total fibroid burden), and does not destroy the entire fibroid treated.

The current data suggest that the success rate for MRgFUS is much lower than the success rate of other treatments (including UAE), and that symptom relief is of a much shorter duration than other treatments. In fact, as many as 1/3 to 1/2 of patients who have MRgFUS go on to have either UAE or surgery (usually hysterectomy) within as little 12-18 months. The procedure is expensive and many insurance companies do not provide coverage.

Dr Kirsch examined this therapy very carefully, and was planning on purchasing a unit if it was going to be a valuable therapy for fibroids. His opinion is that MRgFUS is a relatively poor therapy for fibroids (although it has great potential for some other disease processes).