Women who opt not to have a hysterectomy for fibroids have a better quality of life if they have a myomectomy than if they undergo uterine-artery embolisation, trial results show.

In the non-blinded FEMME trial conducted at 29 centres of the UK, 254 women with symptomatic uterine fibroids were randomised to one of the two procedures and followed for two years.

The primary outcome was measured by the score on the health-related quality-of-life domain of the Uterine Fibroid Symptom and Quality of Life (UFS-QOL) questionnaire (scores 0-100, with higher scores indicating a better quality of life).

The mean age of participants was 41 years, 46% were Caucasian, 48% expressed a desire for a pregnancy at baseline and 66% had only 1-3 fibroids, while the remainder had more, the authors reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.