This past week, Johnson & Johnson’s Ethicon unit announced that it would be recalling all of the devices it has manufactured in the past few years, and will be completely stepping away from the power morcellator business.

This decision has stemmed from the mounting number of power morcellator lawsuits the company is facing over the complications reported from their morcellator devices being used in laparoscopic surgeries.

Power morcellators are medical devices that are used during certain laparoscopic hysterectomy and myomectomy procedures, because it allows doctors and surgeons to keep these surgeries minimally invasive.

With these devices, doctors make small incisions on the surgical site, then cuts up the uterine fibroids and removes the tissue through the incision. Unfortunately, these surgeries have reportedly caused cancer to spread throughout the patient’s body.

The announcement of the power morcellator recall was made several days ago and addressed in emails and text messages sent by Ethicon to doctors who were known to use these devices.

According to a report made by The Wall Street Journal, Ethicon has indicated that the risk of spreading cancer is too high, which has led to the company to come to the decision to stop manufacturing and selling its morcellator devices.

Ethicon power morcellator devices are the most popular in the competitive market due to their convenience, but serious concerns of design defects have surfaced, alleging that the devices could potentially cause the spreading of aggressive uterine cancers, because some of the uterine fibroid contained a uterine sarcoma.

As of now, there is no way for a doctor to diagnose uterine sarcoma before it is discovered outright.

Morcellator Cancer Concerns

The morcellator recall comes from a series of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warnings and advisory panel meetings, where it was determined that one out of every 350 women who undergo uterine fibroid removal surgery may have unsuspected sarcoma.

When the sarcoma is ruptured, the cancer cells that were in the infected part of the uterus are allowed to spread throughout the body. This rapidly increases the process of other cancerous conditions such as leiomyoscaroma and endometrial stromal sarcoma developing.

On April 17, the FDA urged doctors to stop using power morcellator devices for uterine fibroid surgeries, due to the cancer risk.

Earlier this month, an FDA advisory committee was deadlocked in deciding whether to recommend strong safety precautions for these devices or simply recall the products all together. However, the committee did agree that there is currently no known method to make uterine fibroid removal surgeries completely safe, using morcellator devices.

After this FDA announcement, Ethicon halted all sales of its morcellator devices to see what the FDA would decide. However, Wednesday’s recall came without the the agency coming to a decision. It is unclear on whether or not that FDA will make a final decision to recall other power morcellators manufactured by other companies.

Regardless of the agency’s decision, it does not change the fact that hundreds of women were allegedly hurt from these devices, and that more appropriate safety precautions could have been taken. A number of uterine fibroid morcellator lawsuits have been filed in district courts across the country, alleging that leiomyosarcoma or similar cancers developed after undergoing morcellator surgery.