Clinical Trials and Hysterectomy

Over the last few months we’ve been sharing blog posts about how important clinical trials are to the future of medicine. This month I’d like to share how such research impacts directly on women undergoing hysterectomy and related treatments for gynaecological conditions they often present with. When the Hysterectomy Association first began life in the mid 1990’s, the standard hysterectomy performed was a ‘total hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo oophorectomy’. What this means is that everything was removed; the womb, the fallopian tubes, the cervix and the ovaries. At the time almost every woman having a hysterectomy only had this option and we didn’t question it. In the years since then, and thanks to the advances of medicine as a result of clinical trials, more and more women are being offered less invasive and more conservative treatments. We’ve seen the numbers of women having a vaginal hysterectomy increasing significantly and an increase in the use of laparascopic techniques and robotic surgery. It’s also important to note that as these changes in surgical technique have been taking place, that the numbers of hysterectomies being performed are also dropping. And over the last 15 years, the number of hysterectomies being done through the NHS has almost halved. This has only been able to happen because there has been a significant amount of research undertaken to find alternative treatments and medical interventions for many of the most common gynaecolo...
Source: The Hysterectomy Association - Category: OBGYN Authors: Tags: Latest News clinical trials covance hysterectomy Source Type: news