British researchers are setting out to find the best way of ensuring women can still have children after treatment for a painful medical condition.
Fibroids in the womb are an increasing problem because treatments can jeopardise a woman’s ability to have children.
Researchers say it is a growing problem as increasingly women choose to delay having children until quite late in life.
Now doctors at Oxford University have announced they will be testing two treatments to see which has least impact on fertility. One is surgical removal of the fibroids and the other is by cutting off the blood supply to the growths through embolisation.
The trial will cost some £2 million and is being financed by the NHS Health Technology Assessment Programme. As well as Oxford, trials will take place in Glasgow and Birmingham and St George’s Hospital, London.
Researcher Professor Klim McPherson, of the Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Oxford, said: "No-one knows which treatment is best for quality of life or fertility but the treatments are very different and this trial should provide the answer.
"Women want to know which will give them the highest chance of conceiving a normal baby afterwards."
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