A New York woman, adding to the rising number of power morcellator lawsuits, has filed a product liability lawsuit against Karl Storz Endoscopy. The morcellation cancer lawsuit alleges that the morcellator used in the plaintiff’s laparoscopic hysterectomy procedure caused her to develop an aggressive form of uterine cancer called leiomyosarcoma.

New York plaintiff Linda Bobletz accused the company of failing to disclose that there were certain risks to using the device in her surgery. Bobletz insists that she never would have chosen to use the power morcellator surgical tool if she had known about the risk of leiomyosarcoma. This morcellation cancer lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York on August 18.

The morcellator cancer lawsuit states that Bobletz had undergone a laparoscopic hysterectomy surgery using the Storz Rotocut G1 uterine morcellator. Bobletz underwent the procedure in August 2011, and surgeons used the Storz morcellator to cut the uterus through the small incision. Powered morcellator devices have this mechanism, so infected tissue can be removed in a quick and less invasive way than traditional surgery.

Powered morcellator devices are advertised to be more efficient, and do not require as much hospital recovery time. Unfortunately, experts claim that due to how the device ruptures the uterine wall, women with uterine sarcoma are placed in direct risk of developing certain aggressive cancer. Essentially, because the tissue is disrupted, the cancer cells are released into the patient’s body. As of now, there is no way to diagnose uterine sarcoma before it is ruptured.

Bobletz states that she had no signs or diagnosis of any form of cancer before using this device. But her morcellation side effects lawsuit said within months of the surgery she received her cancer diagnosis.

The morcellator lawsuit accuses Storz of negligence, false advertising, misrepresenting a product, and concealing information. Bobletz’s morcellation cancer lawsuit comes in the wake of an FDA warning released in April, which urged doctors to stop using power morcellator devices during laparoscopic hysterectomy procedures for uterine fibroid removal, due to the cancer risk.

It is estimated that one in 350 women who undergo a uterine fibroid surgery using this device may have undiagnosed sarcoma and are at risk of developing leiomysarcoma.

Power morcellation lawsuits have involved the following procedures:

• Myomectomy (removal of fibroids)
• Hysterectomy (removal of the uterus)
• Oophorectomy (removal of the ovaries)
• Salpingectomy (removal of fallopian tubes)