Contribution of contrast-enhanced ultrasound with Sonovue to describe the microvascularization of uterine fibroid tumors before and after uterine artery embolization.

Objective: The principal objective of this study was to use contrast-enhanced ultrasonography to describe the characteristics of fibroid microvascularization before and after embolization.

Study Design: Forty women had contrast-enhanced ultrasonography with Sonovue(®) injections before uterine artery embolization, the day afterwards, and at 6-12 months afterwards. An MRI was also performed before and after the procedure.

Results: Two thirds of the fibroids took up the contrast product before the myometrium did, and 45.8% were vascularized along the peripheral rim of the fibroid, compared with 41.6% with a principal pedicle and from the center in three (12.6%). After embolization at day one (D1), the myometrium was fully enhanced, that is, perfusion of the myometrium was plainly visible, in 25 cases (69.4%; n=36), partially enhanced in eight (22.2%), and totally avascular in three (8.4%). Analysis of the failures according to imaging criteria the day after embolization (D1) showed failure in seven women, with partial enhancement for six, and total for one. In the imaging at 6 months (M6), contrast ultrasonography showed failure for three women, with enhancement of the largest fibroid. This enhancement was total in two cases and partial (40%) in one. There were five failures according to MRI at M6, with partial enhancement. Only two of these failures were simultaneously failures according to the contrast-enhanced ultrasonography. There were five clinical failures, two consistent with the imaging at 6 months and four predictable on D1.

Conclusion: Contrast-enhanced ultrasonography is feasible and useful to understand fibroid vascularization and for monitoring embolization; its correlation with MRI is good, its concordance less so.