That women should maintain and healthy diet and avoid smoking or drinking alcohol to excess are the messages coming out of Taizhou in Jiangsu at present, after a girl as young as 17 was found to have enormous fibroids in her uterus.
The rare condition normally only found in women over twice her age was so extreme that the girl had in fact developed fibroids that en masse measured 23 x 19 x 20 centimetres in size, approximately that of a volleyball.
Jiang Tao, director of the Department of Gynecology at Taizhou Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital Affiliated to Nantong University, spoke with the Yangtze Evening News on 8 November to explain the background to the girl’s condition.
The young lady in question, who comes from another province, works in a town in Taizhou. Living with her boyfriend, she found that her period had failed to arrive and thus went to the local health centre for treatment at the start of this month.
A preliminary examination by the health centre found the fibroids in her uterus, but due to the facility’s limited medical capacity, it was recommended to transfer the girl to the Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital in Taizhou.
Jiang there recalled that when she first diagnosed the girl, she found her to be thin, but by touching with fingers, it was obvious that there was a mass in the girl’s abdomen. When asked if the she had noticed before, the girl replied that she thought she was pregnant.
Sometimes known as uterine myomas or leiomyomas, many women are after unaware they have fibroids simply because there are no symptoms. Many are too small to see. But as the case in Taizhou proves there are exceptions, albeit very rare.
The Mayo Clinic notes, “A fibroid that gets very big can distort the inside and the outside of the uterus. In extreme cases, some fibroids grow large enough to fill the pelvis or stomach area. They can make a person look pregnant”.
Together with her colleagues, Jiang was able to subsequently and successfully performed an operation to remove the fibroids, whereupon they came close to filling an entire basin.
“Uterine fibroids generally occur in women aged 30 to 50, with an incidence rate of about 20-30 percent”, said Jiang. The doctor suggested that the case in such a young woman may be down to her family situation and lifestyle. With her parents divorced when she was a child, the girl received little care from her family. She has a history of smoking and an abnormal and unhealthy diet. Genetic factors cannot be ruled out.
The Mayo Clinic again corroborates these as risk factors, saying, “Starting your period before the age of 10; obesity; being low on vitamin D; having a diet higher in red meat and lower in green vegetables, fruit and dairy; and drinking alcohol, including beer, seem to raise your risk of getting fibroids”.
