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Olympus Corp. Hit With Morcellator Cancer Lawsuit

September 15, 2015 — A woman from Mississippi has filed a lawsuit against Olympus Corp. blaming her diagnosis of endometrial cancer on a morcellator that was used during her fibroid surgery.

The woman, Marlene Kay Waltman, underwent surgery in July 2011 for the treatment of post-menopausal bleeding and what she thought were benign fibroids (non-cancerous growths on the uterus).

In reality, she had undiagnosed cancer. When the Olympus PKS™ PlasmaSORD™ Bipolar Morcellator was used to remove her fibroids, it left tiny pieces of malignant tissue in her abdomen that began to grow. Her oncologist diagnosed her with endometrial cancer, and blamed it on “a port site metastasis in the setting of a morcellated specimen,” according to the complaint.

In a lawsuit filed on September 11 in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, Waltman accuses Olympus of failing to adequately warn about the risk of upstaging, disseminating, or “seeding” malignant cancer cells. She says her prognosis greatly worsened because her surgeon used the device.

Waltman joins hundreds of other women who have filed lawsuits against the biggest device-makers in America. Her case is the third against Olympus. Most of the lawsuits have been filed against the largest manufacturer of morcellators, Johnson & Johnson.

The litigation has been growing steadily ever since the FDA issued a Safety Communication to warn that morcellators should not be used in the “vast majority” of women.

The agency estimated that one in 350 women who undergo a hysterectomy actually has undiagnosed uterine cancer. The problem is that there is no way of knowing whether a woman has cancer until after the tissue is removed from her body and examined under a microscope.

Do I have a Morcellator Lawsuit?

The Schmidt Firm, PLLC is currently accepting morcellator induced injury cases in all 50 states. If you or somebody you know was diagnosed with uterine cancer, you should contact our lawyers immediately for a free case consultation. Please use the form below to contact our Defective Medical Device Litigation Group or call toll free 24 hours a day at (866) 920-0753.

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