Dr. John Fischer was an expert panelist at the Texas Fibroid Awareness Month event in Houston, Texas, organized by The Barbara Jordan Leadership Institute and sponsored by Fibroid Institute Texas.

Here is what Dr. Fischer said:

So, I tell patients all the time that I think one of the most important things in terms of knowledge is knowing what your options are if you do in fact need to be treated because it's not a one size fits all.

I find too many patients that are only offered hysterectomy, open surgery.

It's gotten better in the 25 years I've been treating fibroids. It used to be much more common where I would hear, just take out your uterus, you're done with your children, just take it out. Which, hysterectomy is still the best option for some patients, but fortunately for patients, there's a lot of other options available today.

A lot of options are a lot less invasive with a lot less recovery time. Traditional hysterectomy is four to six weeks of complete recovery. Who has four to six weeks to take off of your life? And then some people, even if work is not a problem, it's caring for children, it's caring for parents. There's a lot of social reasons why patients can't do that as well.

So fortunately today, there are a lot of other options, and there are minimally invasive surgical options. There is robotic surgery, laparoscopic surgery, hysteroscopic surgery, which are all less invasive ways to either to remove the uterus or remove fibroids from the uterus.

There are less invasive means of small incisions, therefore shorter recovery times. About half of the traditional recovery time from open surgery. So rather than four to six weeks, like two to three weeks.

There are some thermal ablation technologies out there that exist where they can heal five weeks of heat, Acessa and Sonota, and not usually used in conjunction with one of the less invasive surgical options. There are better drugs and medications than we've ever had, with more coming out all the time.

They can be very effective in controlling symptoms related to fibroids. The trouble with most drugs and medications, both hormonal and nonhormonal, is that their effects tend to be temporary. So they work pretty well for most patients when they're on them, but as soon as you come off, the symptoms generally come right back. And then many of the medications, especially the hormones, there are limitations to the amount of time a patient can take them. And there are limited significant side effects for some patients as well.

And as I mentioned, still are traditional surgical options. My practice is dedicated to treatment with fibroid embolization, which is basically catheter based. It's done much like a heart catheter procedure through a tiny puncture of an artery. What we do basically is we cut off the blood supply to the fibroids and cause the fibroids to shrink and die with a significantly less downtime, less recovery time.

Love doing my procedure, but I tell patients all the time, it's not the best for everybody, I realize that. So that's why I feel like every patient that comes in, I always say that my primary goal in today's meeting is to educate, provide information, answer questions. And if you're a good candidate for my procedure I'll tell you and if I feel like you're served better by something else I'll be the first to tell you that as well.

But too many physicians out there only offer what they do. They only talk about what they do. They don't talk about things they don't do and that's how we try to be different.
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For more information on Dr. John Fischer or Fibroid Institute Texas, visit: https://www.fibroidfree.com or @FibroidFreeMD on social media