Many health professionals have become concerned in recent years about the safety of a medical device called a power morcellator.

Doctors and patients alike are worried about the power morcellation cancer risk associated with the device.

What is a Power Morcellator?

When a surgeon uses a power morcellator in a gynecological procedure, it is generally used laparoscopically. Women opt for morcellation procedures for minimally invasive hysterectomies or the removal of uterine fibroids.

The device is inserted into the abdominal cavity. The device chops up the offending tissue and removes it from the body. There is less time in the operating room, less blood lost and a shorter recovery time for patients.

However, there is serious morcellation cancer risk among women who opt for this type of procedure.

Morcellation Cancer Risk

When a patient undergoes morcellation surgery, tiny bits of tissue are disseminated around the abdominal cavity. If this tissue is benign, there can still be problems.

Those bits of tissue can latch on to other organs and seed new growth.

The real problem for morcellation cancer risk comes when the tissue being morcellated is cancerous. Uterine cancer is extremely hard to detect and most patients do not know they have it in its early stages.

If a patient with undetected uterine cancer undergoes a morcellation procedure, those cancerous cells can be disseminated all throughout the body. What was once a slow moving, undetected cancer has now become a quickly growing, aggressive leiomyosarcoma.

Estimates say that one in 350 women who undergo a uterine fibroid morcellation surgery may have undiagnosed sarcoma and are at risk of developing leiomyosarcoma.

Causes and Symptoms of Uterine Cancer

The fourth most common cancer, uterine cancer occurs when cells within the uterus begin to grow abnormally. These cells multiply rapidly and form tumors in the uterus.

Most uterine cancers occur in the endometrium. This type of cancer is highly curable.

But some types occur on the muscular outer lining of the uterus. These cancers are called sarcomas. These are aggressive in nature and are very hard to detect.

Uterine leiomyosarcoma usually occurs in women between the ages of 40 and 60 and only accounts for 1% of patients with uterine cancer. But these tumors have the propensity to metastasize and 70% of patients, even with surgery, see a recurrence within 16 months.

Morcellation procedures can upstage any undetected uterine cancers. This can take a cancer in stage one and move it stage four very quickly.

Some symptoms of upstaged uterine cancer after morcellation are: