Woman Sues After Suffering Incurable Cancer Due To Morcellator

A woman in New Jersey has decided to seek out compensation from her doctor because she claims he used a hysterectomy device that the Food and Drug Administration has stated can spread cancer in the body. The woman, a 43-year-old mother, is near death after over a year following a hysterectomy. Now, she’s blaming her doctor, because he used a device during the procedure that she claims is known to cause cancer to spread throughout the body.

The woman had a minimally invasive hysterectomy in October 2014, because she was suffering from a large fibroid inside her uterus. The surgical tool known as a power morcellator was used, and it both tore and cut tissues, allowing them to be easily removed from the body during the keyhole surgery.

In April 2014, an FDA reported safety alert stated that morcellators could spread undetected cancer cells. If minced and undetected cells were left behind, then they could spread throughout the abdominal cavity and travel to other body parts, the safety alert pointed out. On top of that, the government had discouraged the use of this tool and encouraged doctors to speak with patients about the risks of using the tool.

The largest manufacturer of the tool has also pulled it off the market, showing that there were plenty of warnings before the woman underwent surgery with this device. She did not receive a pre-operative biopsy and didn’t know about the risk of spreading cancer, she claimed. Just a few weeks following her surgery, she was diagnosed with State 4 leiomyosarcoma, which is incurable.

Source: New York Daily News, “Dying woman sues her New Jersey doctors for using a hysterectomy device that the FDA says can spread cancer,” Ashley Lewis, Aug. 14, 2015