Abstract: PD02-07
Sources of Funding: None

Introduction

Complications related to power morcellation of uterine specimens in women undergoing minimally invasive surgery, specifically an increase in undetected cancer, led to the FDA communications in April and November 2014. The former discouraged and the latter recommended against the use of power morcellation for women undergoing hysterectomy or myomectomy. Subsequently, practitioners drastically decreased the use of power morcellation (Wright 2016). Our aim was to determine the effect of increased patient awareness of complications on the decrease in use of the morcellator. We tested this using Google Trends&[copy], a public tool that provides data on temporal patterns of search terms and correlated this data with the timing of the FDA communication.

Methods

Weekly relative search volume (RSV), representing normalized and scaled reference points, was obtained from Google Trends&[copy] using the search term &[Prime]morcellation.&[Prime] Higher RSV correspond to increases in weekly search volume. The search volumes were divided into three groups: April 2012 to March 2014 (the 2 years prior to the FDA communication), a one-year period following the update, and thereafter with the distribution of the weekly RSV over the three periods tested using one-way analysis of variance.

Results

The mean RSV prior to the FDA communication was 12.0 (standard deviation (SD)=15.8), compared to 60.3 (SD=24.7) in the one year after the update and 19.3 (SD=5.2) thereafter (p<0.001).

Conclusions

Google search activity about morcellation of uterine specimens increased significantly after the FDA communications regarding power morcellation. This trend indicates an increased public awareness regarding morcellation and its complications, and therefore more extensive pre-operative counseling and alteration of surgical technique and clinician practice may be necessary.

Funding

None