Laparoscopic Hysterectomy Resulted in Metastasized Stage 4 Cancer, Lawsuit Alleges

The medical device manufacturer Karl Storz, a New Jersey hospital and several doctors face a lawsuit brought by a New York woman, which alleges that a power morcellator used during a laparoscopic hysterectomy caused her to suffer metastasized stage 4 uterine cancer. 

Viviana Ruscitto filed the complaint (PDF) in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey on July 22, indicating that a Unidrive power morcellator manufactured by Karl Storz was used during her robotic assisted laparoscopic supracervical hysterctomy and bilateral salpingectomy at The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, New Jersey on October 17, 2014.

Prior to the procedure, Ruscitto indicates that there was no evidence she had cancer. However, days after her hysterectomy, Ruscitto was diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma, an aggressive form of uterine cancer. She later had to undergo several more surgeries and also had to begin taking blood thinners and undergo a total hysterectomy because of an ovarian blood clot the hospital failed to diagnose and due to the cancer, the lawsuit claims.

Following the laparoscopic hysterectomy, Ruscitto’s cancer went through several metastases, spreading to the right side of her abdomen, pelvis and lungs. She is now undergoing heavy and frequent chemotherapy.

Ruscitto alleges that the cancer was spread because the surgeons used a power morcellator during her laparoscopic hysterectomy, which is a medical device that allows the surgeon to cut up the uterus or fibroids through a minimally invasive incision in the abdomen. However, concerns have emerged over the past year about the safety of the device, as many women may have undiagnosed cancer contained within the uterus that may be spread by the morcellator.

“On or before October 17, 2014, Plaintiff was never warned of the danger and likelihood that the use of a laparoscopic power morcellator device could disseminate and upstage unsuspected cancer,” the lawsuit states. “In fact, Plaintiff was specifically concerned about ovarian cancer, and verbally communicated her concerns to her surgeon, Jones who duly documented the Plaintiff’s concerns.”

The case joins about two dozen other morcellator cancer lawsuits currently pending in courts throughout the U.S., each involving similar allegations that medical device manufacturers failed to adequately warn women or the medical community that morcellation may spread undiagnozed leiomyosarcoma, endometrial stromal sarcoma or other uterine cancers.

In the federal court system, a motion was filed in June with the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation calling for all lawsuits over undiagnosed cancer spread by morcellators to be centralized before one judge for coordinated pretrial proceedings.

As additional families learn about the potential link between morcellators and uterine cancers diagnosed after a hysterectomy or fibroid removal, it is ultimately expected that more than 100 complaints could be filed in courts throughout the country.

Plaintiffs call for the federal cases be consolidated as part of an MDL, or multidistrict litigation, to reduce duplicative discovery into common issues in the cases, avoid conflicting rulings from different judges and to serve the convenience of the parties, witnesses and the courts.

Ruscitto’s lawsuit accuses the defendants of medical malpractice, lack of informed consent, product liability and defective design, inadequate warning, negligence, strict products liability, failure to warn, breach of warranty, and fraudulent misrepresentation and omission. The lawsuit seeks both punitive and compensatory damages.