Dr. Richard Marvel, a physician in the Pelvic Panic Center at Greater Baltimore Medical Center and an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University, helped develop an instrument to diagnose several sources of pelvic pain. About 15 percent of women between the ages of 18 and 50 suffer chronic pelvic pain.
“Chronic pain tends to be a combination of factors that existed over a period of time that together add up to cause their pain,” said Marvel, director of the Pelvic Pain Center and assistant professor at the University of Maryland Medical Center.
“Once you have a good diagnosis and targeted treatment, they tend to get better and better over time,” he said.
Marvel helped Cook Women’s Health develop a less painful catheter and needle combination to deliver a dye to trace pelvic veins. Tangling or clumping of pelvic veins — which aren’t surrounded and supported by muscle tissue like those in the leg — is a major culprit.
Often, women suffering pelvic pain can be treated by sealing shut affected veins or, in severe cases, undergoing a hysterectomy.
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