Power Morcellator Lawsuit Alleges Wrongful Death Due To Leiomyosarcoma

November 24, 2015 – – Tracey & Fox reports on another power morcellator lawsuit filed by a husband from North Carolina. The suit claims that the power morcellator device used during his wife’s gynecological surgery spread and accelerated leiomyosarcoma, and contributed to her ultimately death.

As the lawsuit details, the man’s wife underwent a hysterectomy in order to remove painful uterine fibroids in March of 2012. During this surgery, the surgeon used a laparoscopic power morcellator. When used for theses surgeries, the morcellator device is inserted through the abdomen via a small incision. Once inside, the tool uses spinning blades to shred troublesome fibroid tissue into smaller pieces that can later be pulled up and out of the body through a tube. Unfortunately, as many lawsuits now allege, as the device does this it can also uncover previously undetected cancer cells, and its spinning motion can spread them throughout the body, causing an accelerated cancer diagnoses and threatening the life expectancy of the patient.

In this particular case, it was stated that: “During tissue morcellation, fragments can be left in the abdomino-pelvic cavity, or attach to surrounding organs, and cancerous cells can travel to remote areas of the body.” Details allege that just 6 months post-surgery, he and his wife were in the ER due to her fatigue and migraines. It was then that physicians discovered large cancer masses in her pelvis which were high-grade leiomyosarcoma. Despite intense treatments and surgeries over the following year and a half, the masses continue to spread and increase in size, ultimately causing the woman’s death on September 9th.

Additional details in the suit alleged that: “Long before [the wife] underwent surgery in 2012, defendants knew or should have known that their laparoscopic power morcellators could cause occult malignant tissue fragments to be disseminated and implanted in the body, which, in turn, upstages the cancer present and significantly worsens a woman’s chance of survival.”

As additional lawsuits of this sort began to mount, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration also issued a safety warning asking most women to refrain from undergoing laparoscopic power morcellator procedures during gynecological surgeries involving uterine fibroids. The FDA noted that this was due to the risk of the device spreading previously hidden uterine sarcomas. They stated that an estimated 1 in every 350 women undergoing laparoscopic hysterectomies may have hidden sarcomas, which, when encapsulated within a uterine fibroid, are virtually impossible to discover before surgery. They attached a black box warning to the device, which is the most strict warning possible.

Today, power morcellator lawsuits continue to mount. The attorneys at Tracey & Fox believe that anyone who underwent laparoscopic power morcellation during a gynecological surgery and who was subsequently diagnosed with cancer may be entitled to compensation. They are working to ensure that these individuals have the opportunity to explore their full legal rights, and are currently offering free consultations.

For additional information concerning power morcellation lawsuits, or to ask questions, please contact the attorneys at Tracey & Fox by calling (713) 322-5375.

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Contact Tracey & Fox:

Sean Tracey
713-495-2333
440 Louisiana Street , Suite 1901
Houston, TX 77002

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