Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 November 2010
Prevalence
Leiomyomata, commonly referred to as fibroids, are the most common tumors of the female genital tract. Their prevalence is impossible to fully assess as many do not come to clinical attention. However, rates are frequently stated to be over 40% in women 40 years or older. With more systematic evaluation, higher rates have been noted. Sixty-nine percent of women who underwent a hysterectomy for noncancerous conditions in Maryland, USA, were found to have fibroids, approximately half of which were not suspected prior to surgery.
With scrupulous histologic examination, fibroids were found by Cramer and Patel in 77 of 100 consecutive hysterectomy specimens. Prevalence reported by histology may reflect only those tumors associated with symptoms rather than a true estimation of their occurrence. In fact, histologically confirmed tumors may only represent 29% of patients for whom sonographic evidence of fibroids exists.
In 1998, a study was undertaken to determine the prevalence of occult fibroids in a random sample of premenopausal women using vaginal ultrasonography. A high percentage (62%) of these women were found to have sonographic evidence of fibroids. However, only 5.4% of 335 Swedish women were found to have fibroids on ultrasonographic examination. Additionally, the occurrence was only 10.1% in 11258 Japanese women. It is clear that though fibroids are a very common pathology, the exact prevalence rate may be impossible to ascertain and may have some significant ethnic and/or environmental associations.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.