Comparison of hysterectomy and uterine artery embolization in the treatment of symptomatic uterine fibroids: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: Uterine fibroids are common benign tumors in premenopausal women. Surgery is the preferred treatment for symptomatic uterine fibroids. An alternative of hysterectomy to manage symptomatic uterine fibroids is selective uterine artery embolization. We performed a protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the effectiveness of uterine artery embolization for treating symptomatic uterine fibroids compared with hysterectomy. Methods: The current systematic review and meta-analysis will be reported following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Protocol. This review protocol has been registered in the International Prospective Register of systematic reviews. Its registration number is CRD42022371866. Only randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are included in our study. Two independent reviewers will search for databases including PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library website, ClinicalTrials.gov databases, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure Database, Wanfang database, and VIP database. The risk of bias in each included study will be assessed utilizing the Cochrane Collaboration’s risk of bias tool. The RevMan 5.3 software (Cochrane Collaboration, Oxford, UK) will be used to conduct the meta-analyses. Results: The results of this systematic review will be published in a peer-reviewed journal. Conclusion: This systematic review will provide high quality evidence to judge whether uterine artery embolization is an effective surgical method for patients with symptomatic uterine fibroids.