Fibroids vs Fibrosis: What You Need To Know

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Fibrosis is growth of fibrous connective tissue as a response to an injury or damage. There are 3 kinds of fibrosis: reactive, benign, and pathological state. When your body responds to an injury, scar tissue forms and if fibrosis arises, it is called a fibroma.

Despite similar names, uterine fibroids and fibrosis are different conditions with a different nature, localization, and symptoms.

⇒ Learn more about uterine fibroids

To understand the difference between fibroids vs fibrosis, let’s pay attention to the types of fibrosis and its symptoms.

Common Types Of Fibrosis

Pulmonary fibrosis

Pulmonary fibrosis is one of the causes of lung damage and eventually loss of lung elasticity. You can recognize the disease by symptoms like persistent cough, chest pain, difficulty breathing, and fatigue. Pulmonary fibrosis is quite dangerous for health, and if you do not start timely treatment, there is a chance of getting complications: high blood pressure in your lungs, right-sided heart failure, respiratory failure, and it may lead to complications like clots, a collapsed lung or lung infections.

This condition can be caused by smoking, infections like tuberculosis or pneumonia, contact with occupational substances that damage lungs.

Cystic Fibrosis

Cystic fibrosis is a genetic disorder that affects mostly lungs, but also pancreas, liver, kidneys, and intestine. It causes persistent lung infections and limits the ability to breathe overtime. Key symptoms of the disease may include difficulty breathing, coughing up mucus, fatty stool, clubbing of the fingers and toes, and male infertility.

Treatment methods depend on the type and severity of the disease that may vary.

Cardiac fibrosis

This type of fibrosis can result from myocardial infarction. Cardiac fibrosis can affect valves in the heart. Heart valves lose their flexibility and thus, can increase the risk of a heart failure.

Uterine Fibroids

Unlike fibrosis, fibroids affect women of reproductive age and develop in uterus. Fibroids are essentially noncancerous tumors that may or may not cause any symptoms. While the exact causes of uterine fibroids are unknown, as many as 80% of women can develop fibroids by the age of 50 (especially African American women).

⇒ Learn more about what causes fibroids

⇒ Learn more about fibroid symptoms

There are several ways to treat fibroids depending on how severe your symptoms are. Women with fibroids who experience no symptoms do not need any treatment.

If you think you may have uterine fibroids, call Atlanta Fibroid Center at 770-953-2600 or make an appointment online.