More hysterectomy patients 'keeping cervix'

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Thursday, 26th February 2009
More women who receive hysterectomies are now keeping their cervix, it has been reported.

According to the Wall Street Journal, more gynecologists are performing procedures that do not remove the cervix if no cancer is found.

While it was common to leave the cervix intact during such procedures prior to the 1940s, by the 1960's removals were common as a precaution since smear tests were seen as relatively new, the Journal says.

It reports that 9.7 per cent of inpatient procedures did not include removal of the cervix in 2006, up from 1.7 per cent a decade earlier.

Seth Kivnick, of the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in West Los Angeles, comments: "When you give women the choice, and you tell them the pros and cons, many of them find the idea of keeping the cervix very appealing."

He says around three-quarters of women who do not have cancer choose to keep their cervix when they undergo a hysterectomy at the hospital.

According to Cancer Research UK, one in every 50 cancers diagnosed in British women are cervical - around 2,800 every year.