Husband And Wife Doctors Claim Her Fibroid Removal Procedure Spread Cancer

Dr. Amy Reed and her husband Dr. Hooman Noorchashm are campaigning against a standard procedure to remove fibroids in the uterus, called morcellation, in which the mass is ground up and removed in minimally-invasive surgery. They claim it spread Dr. Reed's previously undetected cancer.

Dr. Noorchashm and Dr. Reed joined Here & Now's Robin Young to discuss the fibroid removal technique and their campaign against it.

“You are basically taking a procedure, which puts women basically in a collision course with a stage four cancer,” said Dr. Noorchashm, noting that this is what happened in his wife's case.

Dr. Reed and Dr. Noorchashm say they've brought their concerns and data about the procedure to their hospital, but the hospital has not stopped offering it.

“There are a number of examples, I think, in medicine where there are procedures or medications … where they’ve done risk analyses and showed that patients who take this medication are at increased risk for X, Y and Z and have pulled those drugs off the market just based on that,” said Dr. Reed in response.

Dr. Reed has had follow-up surgeries to remove the cancer and will soon start chemotherapy.