Mournful widower of Erica K. is suing for the wrongful death of his wife after she underwent a laparoscopic procedure using a power morcellator product. The hospital is being sued by the husband for the death of his wife, alleging the hospital knew about the risks of using power morcellators, but failed to inform the couple and neglected to take the necessary safety precautions.

Widower Rick K. lost his wife to uterine cancer after a uterine sarcoma was ruptured during a typical hysterectomy procedure, which employed a morcellation device during the medical procedure. Rick’s wife died in April 2013, a year and a half after she underwent surgery, and he is holding Brigham and Women’s Hospital responsible after allowing her to undergo a risky larparoscopic procedure using a power morcellator. The power morcellator caused undiagnosed cancer cells to spread throughout her body, but the hospital had allegedly failed to inform the deceased of the risks beforehand.

This wrongful death lawsuit was filed in June of this year in the Suffolk County Superior Court in Boston. The morcellation cancer lawsuit also names the performing surgeons as defendants, along with device manufacturer Karl Storz GmbH & Co. This power morcellator lawsuit is just one in a series of power morcellator lawsuits that have been filed throughout the federal court systems, with specialized law firms investigating over 300 similar cases. According to a recent report released by the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML), a number of lawyers are looking to consolidate these similar cases under one judge to streamline the litigation process.

Interestingly enough, the defending hospital had started cutting back on using power morcellators in December 2013. The hospital did this after admitting that the morcellator caused the death of two patients, including Erica K.

Erica had been diagnosed with uterine sarcoma in June 2012, soon after her surgery was performed. Before her morcellator hysterectomy, she had been told the likelihood of having uterine sarcoma was one in 10,000. However, her surgeon allegedly knew that the statistic he told Erica severely underestimated the possibility of uterine cancer. The Wall Street Journal also commented on this saga in November 2014, stating that Brigham and Women’s hospital had continued to use power morcellators even after compiling safety-risk data back from 2011.

Overview of Power Morcellater Cancer Concern

In 2014, the FDA sent out a public warning that women who undergo a laparoscopic procedure using a power morcellator device have a one in 350 chance of developing uterine cancer due to an undiagnosed uterine sarcoma. The concern was so prevalent to the agency that the FDA called for a black-box warning on these devices. This spurred Johnson & Johnson to pull their own power morcellators from the market. Since then, many hospitals have either stopped or severely limited using these devices.

Even before the FDA had released that public warning, many women and medical caregivers expressed concern over the risk of power morcellators. The concern of power morcellators stem from the rotating blades attached to the device, which are used to slice up the uterine fibroids to enable them be sucked up through a tube, inserted through a small incision in the abdomen. While this process has been advertised to be less invasive and require less hospital time for recovering patients, there is a risk attached to power morcellators in the form of undiagnosed uterine sarcoma.

Currently, there is no diagnostic method to detect uterine sarcoma before a morcellator procedure, at which point they can become unintentionally ruptured. When these uterine sarcomas are opened, cancer cells are released into the body at a fast and aggressive rate,  ultimately leading to post-procedure cancer diagnosis. For these reasons, the FDA highly discourages medical experts from using these devices while watchdogs call for a complete recall.

Despite the data supporting the concerns of the FDA and other medical experts, the hospital in question decided to keep using the power morcellator because they concluded that data to be too limited to implement any changes in hospital procedure. Obviously, Rick and other devastated family members disagree with this decision. As a result, they are pursuing lawsuits against the hospitals and manufacturing companies responsible for making these dangerous medical devices.