Uterine fibroids are still benign tumors as long as they are called “tumors”, but they can also “degenerate” for a variety of reasons. The term “sex change” is a somewhat sensational term for the difference between men and women, usually referring to male to female, or vice versa. So, what is the “sex change” of uterine fibroids? The so-called degeneration of uterine fibroids, in most cases, is just a degenerative change of uterine fibroids due to chronic or acute ischemia, only a very small number of degeneration is malignant. Degeneration of uterine fibroids mostly occurs when the growth of fibroids is accelerated and blood flow is relatively insufficient, such as during pregnancy, after childbirth and after menopause. Usually, the texture of fibroids becomes softer after degeneration, but there are also cases where the texture becomes harder. The main types of degeneration are as follows. 1.Glassy or transparent degeneration: It is mainly due to the lack of blood supply to the fibroids, and the fibroid tissues become edematous and liquefied, and finally replaced by glassy material. When examined by gynecologists, the texture of fibroids will be found to be softened. 2. Cystic change: Most of them occur after vitreous change. The glass-like material liquefies and forms a cystic cavity, making the originally hard myoma soft like a deflated ball, which is easily misdiagnosed as an ovarian cyst. 3. Fatty degeneration and calcification: fat cells within the myocytes in uterine fibroids increase and fatty degeneration occurs. Further development makes the myoma calcified, and the texture is much more win than normal fibroids, hard as a stone. If you do abdominal X-ray, sometimes you can even see high-density calcification shadow that cannot pass through the X-ray. 4. Red degeneration: Most of them occur during pregnancy, but this degeneration can also occur after delivery, mostly due to acute ischemia of fibroids, such as embolism of blood vessels supplying fibroids, and ischemia of twisted fibroids with tissues. Necrosis and hemorrhage can occur in ischemic myoma tissue. Hemorrhage, hemolysis, and hemoglobin infiltration into the fibroid tissue cause the tissue to turn red. Patients with red myoma degeneration often have severe abdominal pain, which can induce miscarriage and preterm delivery. This is the reason why it is generally recommended to remove fibroids before pregnancy for larger diameter (more than 4 cm) fibroids. 5, malignant change of fibroids: the chance of malignant change of fibroids varies from report to report, but it is generally believed that it is not more than 0.5%, which means that one out of every 200 patients with fibroids may have malignant change. This probability may not seem high for the malignancy of fibroids, but if you are buying a lottery ticket to catch the jackpot, the probability is temptingly high. People have a tendency to avoid harm and take chances, and with the same probability, it is usually considered much more likely to win a lottery ticket than to have a traffic accident or develop a disease. The 0.5% rate of myxoma malignancy is just an average. Generally speaking, those myomas that grow suddenly in a short period of time and do not shrink or even grow after menopause are the most alarming cases. In contrast, fibroids that grow slowly or even change little with long-term observation are relatively much less likely to become malignant. The type of malignant degeneration of uterine fibroids is sarcomatous degeneration. After malignant degeneration, the uterus becomes softer and grows faster, often accompanied by irregular vaginal bleeding or excessive menstruation. As you can see, with so many kinds of degeneration, the most worrying is the malignant degeneration, which fortunately does not occur at a high rate. Except for red degeneration, other types of fibroid degeneration have no obvious symptoms. A pelvic examination and ultrasound can assist the doctor in diagnosing the presence of degeneration. The exact type of degeneration can only be determined by pathological examination after surgical removal.