How is uae performed

These include injury to a vessel, uterine infection, blood clots and injury of the ovaries. UAE has been performed for seven years, and many studies have confirmed its utility as a primary treatment for uterine fibroids in suitable patients. Longer-term studies are currently underway. UCSF Health medical specialists have reviewed this information. It is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace the advice of your doctor or other health care provider.

We encourage you to discuss any questions or concerns you may have with your provider. Fibroids are round muscle growths that develop within a woman's uterus and are almost always benign, meaning that they are non-cancerous. Learn more here. Hysterectomy is a major surgical procedure in which the uterus is removed. Many women choose hysterectomy to definitively resolve their fibroid symptoms. A myomectomy is an operation to remove fibroids while preserving the uterus. For women who have fibroid symptoms and want to have children in the future,.

Treatments A-Z. Related Conditions. Preparation After midnight the night before your UAE procedure, you should not eat or drink anything. Procedure UAE takes approximately two hours and is performed in a radiology suite rather than an operating room by an interventional radiologist. Recovery After the procedure, you must be on bed rest for six hours lying flat with the leg in which the catheter was placed straight.

Once you return home, you must adhere to the following instructions to ensure a smooth recovery: Drink eight glasses of liquid such as water, juice or soda once you return home.

You may begin your usual diet when you leave the hospital. See the Catheter Embolization page for more information. When the procedure is complete, the doctor will remove the catheter and apply pressure to stop any bleeding.

Sometimes, your doctor may use a closure device to seal the small hole in the artery. This will allow you to move around more quickly. No stitches are visible on the skin. The nurse will cover this tiny opening in the skin with a dressing. You will most likely remain in the hospital overnight so that you may receive pain medications and be observed.

The doctor or nurse will attach devices to your body to monitor your heart rate and blood pressure. You will feel a slight pinch when the nurse inserts the needle into your vein for the IV line and when they inject the local anesthetic.

Most of the sensation is at the skin incision site. The doctor will numb this area using local anesthetic. You may feel pressure when the doctor inserts the catheter into the vein or artery.

However, you will not feel serious discomfort. If the procedure uses sedation, you will feel relaxed, sleepy, and comfortable. You may or may not remain awake, depending on how deeply you are sedated. You may feel slight pressure when the doctor inserts the catheter , but no serious discomfort. As the contrast material passes through your body, you may feel warm. This will quickly pass. While you are in the hospital, your pain will be well-controlled with a narcotic.

After staying overnight at the hospital, you should be able to return home the day after the procedure. You may experience pelvic cramps for several days after your UFE, and possibly mild nausea and low-grade fever as well. The cramps are most severe during the first 24 hours after the procedure and will improve rapidly over the next several days.

While in the hospital, the discomfort usually is well-controlled with pain medication delivered through your IV. Once you return home, you will be given prescriptions for pain and other medications to be taken by mouth. You should be able to return to your normal activities within one to two weeks after UFE.

Afterward, it is common for menstrual bleeding to be much less during the first cycle and gradually increase to a new level that is usually greatly improved as compared to before the procedure.

Occasionally you may miss a cycle or two or even rarely stop having periods altogether. Relief of bulk-related symptoms usually takes two to three weeks to be noticeable and over a period of months the fibroids to continue to shrink and soften. By six months, the process has usually finished and the amount of symptom improvement will stabilize. The interventional radiologist will discuss the results with you and coordinate follow-up care with your primary care physician or gynecologist.

Uterine fibroid embolization should not be performed in women who have no symptoms from their fibroid tumors, when cancer is a possibility, or when there is inflammation or infection in the pelvis. Uterine fibroid embolization is not an option for women who are pregnant. A woman who is known to be severely allergic to contrast materials that contain iodine require pretreatment before UFE or perhaps should consider a different treatment option.

Please type your comment or suggestion into the text box below. Note: we are unable to answer specific questions or offer individual medical advice or opinions. Please contact your physician with specific medical questions or for a referral to a radiologist or other physician. To locate a medical imaging or radiation oncology provider in your community, you can search the ACR-accredited facilities database.

This website does not provide cost information. The costs for specific medical imaging tests, treatments and procedures may vary by geographic region. Web page review process: This Web page is reviewed regularly by a physician with expertise in the medical area presented and is further reviewed by committees from the Radiological Society of North America RSNA and the American College of Radiology ACR , comprising physicians with expertise in several radiologic areas.

Outside links: For the convenience of our users, RadiologyInfo. Some fibroids that are primarily inside the uterus pedunculated submucosal may be expelled vaginally following the procedure. Finally, if the fibroids have already lost their blood supply degenerated , uterine artery embolization won't provide any benefit.

Uterine artery embolization usually is performed by an interventional radiologist or a specialist in obstetrics and gynecology who has training in uterine artery embolization.

On the evening before the procedure, don't eat or drink after midnight or after whatever time your doctor advised. If you're taking medications, ask your doctor if you should stop taking them before or after the procedure. He or she then inserts a catheter into your femoral artery, guides it to one of your two uterine arteries and releases tiny particles into the vessels. Small particles embolic agents are injected into the uterine artery through a small catheter.

The embolic agents then flow to the fibroids and lodge in the arteries that feed them. This cuts off blood flow to starve the tumors. To see your uterus and blood vessels, the radiologist uses a fluoroscope. This device is a pulsed X-ray beam that produces moving images of internal structures and displays them on a computer monitor.

In the radiology procedure room, you'll have an intravenous IV line placed in one of your veins to give you fluids, anesthetics, antibiotics and pain medications.

Blood vessel mapping and injection. An injected contrast fluid, usually containing iodine, flows into the uterine artery and its branches and makes them visible on the fluoroscope's monitor.

The fibroids "light up" more brightly than other uterine tissue. The radiologist identifies the right area of the uterine artery and then injects the blood vessel with tiny particles made of plastic or gelatin. The particles are carried by the blood flow to block the fibroid vessels. After injecting more contrast into the uterine artery, the doctor checks additional images to make sure that blood is no longer reaching the fibroids.

The same steps are then repeated in the second uterine artery. In the recovery room, your care team monitors your condition and gives you medication to control any nausea and pain. When the effects of the anesthesia fade, they take you to your hospital room for overnight observation. Post-embolization syndrome — characterized by low-grade fever, pain, fatigue, nausea and vomiting — is frequent after uterine artery embolization.

Post-embolization syndrome symptoms peak about 48 hours after the procedure and usually resolve on their own within a week. Image-Guided Interventions. Editorial team. Uterine artery embolization. UAE is done by a doctor called an interventional radiologist. The procedure is usually done this way: You receive a sedative.

This is medicine that makes you relaxed and sleepy. A local painkiller anesthetic is applied to the skin around your groin. This numbs the area so you do not feel pain. The radiologist makes a tiny cut incision in your skin. A thin tube catheter is inserted into your femoral artery. This artery is at the top of your leg.

The radiologist threads the catheter into your uterine artery. This artery supplies blood to the uterus. Small plastic or gelatin particles are injected through the catheter into the blood vessels that supply blood to the fibroids.

These particles block the blood supply to the tiny arteries that carry blood to the fibroids. Without this blood supply, the fibroids shrink and die. UAE is done in both your left and right uterine arteries through the same incision. If needed, more than 1 fibroid is treated.

Why the Procedure is Performed.