More than 600,000 hysterectomies are done in the US every year. By the age of 70, one out of every three American women will have had a hysterectomy. About 90% of these surgeries are done for what is presumed to be a benign condition called fibroids. More and more of these surgeries are done with minimally invasive techniques. Usually, to get the uterus out of the body using the “minimally invasive” technique, it is cut into small pieces with a machine called a morcellator. However, a devastating problem happens if in fact the woman did NOT have fibroids – but if she actually had cancer. Unfortunately, the tests that are done before a hysterectomy do not identify these cancers well. Many gynecologists don’t even bother getting any tests. In fact, morcellating cancer spreads the cancer inside the woman’s body.
This is called ‘up staging’ the cancer. It is important to understand:
- The average life span following accidental morcellation of sarcoma is only 24-36 months.
- Only 15% of woman who have leiomyosarcoma (LMS) that has spread (stage 4) will be alive after 5 years.
- Women with sarcoma who are morcellated are about 4 times more likely to die from sarcoma than if they had not been morcellated.
This is an avoidable disaster..
Read on Change.org Women’s Health Alert: Deadly Cancers of the Uterus Spread by Gynecologists. Stop Morcellating the Uterus in Minimally Invasive and Robot Assisted Hysterectomy and Myomectomy
and SIGN the petition.