Safety of Minimally Invasive Tissue Extraction in Myoma Management: A Systematic Review

This review seeks to establish the incidence of adverse outcomes associated with minimally invasive tissue extraction at the time of surgical procedures for myomas.

Articles published in the following databases without date restrictions: PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and Trials. Search was conducted on March 25, 2020.

Included studies evaluated minimally invasive surgical procedures for uterine myomas involving morcellation. This review did not consider studies of nonuterine tissue morcellation, studies involving uterine procedures other than hysterectomy or myomectomy, studies involving morcellation of known malignancies, nor studies concerning hysteroscopic myomectomy. A total of 695 studies were reviewed, with 185 studies included for analysis.

The following variables were extracted: patient demographics, study type, morcellation technique, and adverse outcome category. Adverse outcomes included prolonged operative time, morcellation time, blood loss, direct injury from a morcellator, dissemination of tissue (benign or malignant), and disruption of the pathologic specimen.

Complications related to morcellation are rare; however, there is a great need for higher quality studies to evaluate associated adverse outcomes.