An audit of abdominal hysterectomy over a decade in a district hospital

A retrospective survey of abdominal hysterectomy in a district hospital in two separate years (1970 and 1980) was undertaken. The mortality and short-term physical morbidity of the operation was low. Evidence is presented of a change in attitude over the decade by gynaecologists towards abdominal hysterectomy, the trend being increasingly liberal, such that in 1980 nearly half the patients subjected to abdominal hysterectomy had no demonstrable pathology. In view of the reported adverse long-term psychiatric and cardiovascular effects of hysterectomy, even when the ovaries are conserved, this trend must give rise to concern.