Two new studies have added to the mounting evidence that power morcellators may be dangerous by spreading uterine cancer to other parts of the body. Both power morcellation cancer studies were published in February of 2015.

What are Power Morcellators?

Power morcellators are tools used in laparoscopic surgery, a type of surgery that uses advanced surgical tools to perform the bulk of the surgery within the patient’s body. This allows doctors to cut through less healthy tissue while performing surgery, making complications less likely and surgery a more viable option for high-risk patients.

However, one of the few drawbacks of laparoscopic surgery is that in some procedures, like hysterectomies, surgeons must remove organs or tissue larger than the small incisions that laparoscopic surgery allows. This is where power morcellators come in. Power morcellators are tools for cutting tissue inside the body into smaller pieces, allowing removal during laparoscopic surgery. But studies show that power morcellators may have serious risks of their own.

Studies Indicate Power Morcellation Cancer Risk

A number of studies have strongly indicated that power morcellators may increase the seriousness of certain cancers. A frequent use of power morcellators is to remove uterine fibroids, a type of benign tumor. This is either done by removing the uterine fibroids themselves or through a full hysterectomy. But more and more research indicates that some uterine fibroids have actual cancer cells bound up within them, and that power morcellators may spread this cancer when they cut through uterine tissue. A major factor in the severity of cancer is how widespread it is within the body, so anything that actively spreads cancer cells throughout the abdomen can escalate cancer.

The first of two new studies was published in the February 2015 issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology, a peer-reviewed medical journal. In this study, researchers from the University of Michigan found that 1 out of 368 women who had benign uterine fibroids also had leiomyosarcoma, a type of uterine cancer that was undetected at the type of their hysterectomies. Additionally, the study found that an average of 1.02 out of 100 women with seemingly benign uterine fibroids had endometrial cancer. In total, roughly 2.7 out of 100 women who had uterine fibroids removed had some kind of undiagnosed uterine cancer. The results were largely in line with earlier studies.

The second of these two studies was also published in February in JAMA Oncology, a journal published by the American Medical Association. This study drew data from more than 41,777 women who had surgery with power morcellators. In this study, researchers looked at actual reported cases of cancer rather than cancer cells detected in removed tissue. In this case, the researchers found that removing uterine fibroids had a lower rate of cancer than full hysterectomies, and that older women had the strongest risk of developing cancer after surgery with power morcellators.

Power Morcellator Lawsuits

The FDA has stopped short of a full ban on power morcellators, but has issued as series of increasingly strong warnings about their use in hysterectomies and surgeries to remove uterine fibroids. Though the FDA hasn’t ordered them off the market, the largest producer of power morcellators, medical giant Johnson & Johnson has bowed out of the market for power morcellators, pulling their model out of the market. While some in the medical community still contend that the benefits of these tools outweigh risks, power morcellation cancer lawsuits have begun to hit the legal system.