Galveston County Daily News (Internet / Print) 02/01/06 http://www.galvnews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=8ce36e897a2d52fd Women facing invasive surgery to remove fibroid tumors might soon have a new option that will not only allow them to avoid the knife but lessen the danger for future pregnancies, according to researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. “In this work, we provide for the first time a genetic explanation for this interesting observation that uterine fibroids are much more common in black women,” said Ayman Al-Hendy, UTMB assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology and lead investigator of the study. “Now, we are creating an environment inside the tumor cells that is low in estrogen bioactivity. Once the tumor cells are deprived of their estrogen, they cannot grow and they become unhealthy and eventually die, which may lead to shrinkage of the tumor.”