Fibroids · Guide
Fibroids explorer: guide
Show the womb within the body, enter the number, size and place of fibroids from the scan report, explain the treatment and share a matching picture sheet.
For patients and families
Look at the picture together
The picture opens with the whole body. Choose Pelvis to see the womb between the bladder and the bowel, then Womb to move close. Drag to turn it and scroll or pinch to zoom.
Show what your scan found
Your clinician can enter how many fibroids your ultrasound or MRI report describes, the size of the largest and where it grows: inside the space in the womb, within its muscle wall, on the outside, or on a stalk. Fibroids are very common growths of muscle in the womb, and they are not cancer. The diagram in the corner shows the womb’s muscle wall and lining with the fibroid. The shapes are schematic, not a copy of your scan.
Things you could ask
“Can you show me where it is?”
“Could it be causing my symptoms?”
“What are my choices if I want to get pregnant in the future?”
Take it home
Ask for a picture sheet with the views you discussed, your team’s explanation, what the womb does, where to find help and the words used. A QR code reopens the same model settings on your phone. Names, notes and contact details are never included in that code or saved online.
For clinicians
Start with orientation
The explorer uses the womb, cervix, vagina, fallopian tubes and ovaries of the womb explorer, in the shared female pelvis with the bladder, rectum, sacrum and body. It adds the muscle wall (shown on the cut face), the uterine arteries and fibroids. Adding fibroids opens a cut-away: down the middle seen from the patient’s left, or for a fibroid on one side, from side to side seen from the front.
Set up from the report
| Control | What to set |
|---|---|
| Number of fibroids | One, a few or many. With more than one, the largest is drawn from the report and the others are drawn smaller in example places. |
| Size of the largest | 5–200 mm, the largest diameter on ultrasound or MRI. The fibroid is drawn at this diameter. |
| Where it grows | Submucosal (bulging into the cavity), intramural (within the muscle wall), subserosal (on the outer surface) or pedunculated (on a stalk outside the womb), as in the report. FIGO subtypes are not drawn separately. |
| Position | Anterior, posterior, fundal, or the patient’s left or right side. |
| Length of the womb | Optional, 40–300 mm, from the report. Without it, the womb is drawn larger than average to make room for fibroids in the wall, and the summary labels its size a model estimate. |
Explain a selected plan
Watching and waiting and medicines draw nothing in teal. Hysteroscopic resection is offered only for a submucosal fibroid and outlines it in teal; After surgery shows the womb without it. Myomectomy outlines the fibroids in teal; After surgery shows the womb with stitched places in the wall. Uterine artery embolisation colours the uterine arteries teal; the fibroids stay, as they shrink over months. Hysterectomy colours the womb, cervix and tubes teal, with the ovaries kept; After surgery shows the closed vaginal vault. The explorer does not suggest which treatment fits.
Limits
- Fibroid shapes are rounded and schematic. Smaller fibroids are drawn in example places. Cavity distortion, degeneration, calcification and adenomyosis are not shown.
- The enlargement of the womb is a model estimate unless a length is entered. Fertility and pregnancy are for the team to discuss; they are not modelled.
- Endometrial ablation, radiofrequency ablation, focused ultrasound and newer hormone tablets are not shown.
Sources and review
- NHS: fibroids
- NICE NG88: heavy menstrual bleeding
- FIGO classification of leiomyomas (Munro and others, 2011).
Practising gynaecologist and interventional radiologist review is still needed for clinical teaching use. Please send corrections through feedback.