Uterine Pathology in Women Undergoing Minimally Invasive Hysterectomy Using Morcellation

Abstract

While minimally invasive surgery has improved outcomes for hysterectomy, the procedure requires removal of the uterus through small incisions. Morcellation, or fragmentation of the uterus into smaller pieces, is one method to remove the uterus. Recently, concern has been raised that morcellation may result in the spread of undetected malignancies.1 Despite the commercial availability of electric power morcellators for 2 decades, accurate estimates of the prevalence of malignancy at the time of electric power morcellation (herein referred to as morcellation) are lacking,1,2 with single-center studies reporting prevalences from 9 to 100 in 10,000.3,4, We used a large insurance database to investigate the prevalence of underlying cancer in women who underwent uterine morcellation.