The surgeons made a tiny incision and entered laparoscopic instruments to be able to see the inside organs. The surgeons very delicately worked around surrounding organs, separating the bladder, lifting up the uterus, separating the ovaries and the Fallopian tubes, and the cervix. Having cut out the blood supply, the only thing that remained to be done is to take the uterus out. In the very end, they used an instrument called the morcellator to take out the uterus (the procedure itself is called morcellation).
The morcellator is a hollow tube with blades in the end. It cuts the uterus into long, thin stripes, and that is how the uterus, even when it is five times bigger than its normal size, can be taken out through a 1.5 cm excision.
One of the advantages of laparoscopic surgery is that incisions are smaller, and are closed with a glue; in contrast to that, classical open stomach hysterectomy is centimeres larger and closed with staples. Also, the cervix is preserved ("supracervical" can be roughly translated as "above the cervix", since only those parts of the uterus are cut away), which will later prevent the vagina from prolapsing and will enable better sex, or no pain during penetration throughout the intercourse.
Laparoscopic hysterectomy is fast becoming the de facto standard way of performing a hysterectomy, unles the woman has a bigger problem, such as cancer.
The surgeons in this laparoscopic supracervical hysterectomy video were David Kmak M.D. and Paul Makela M.D. of WSU School of Medicine, filmed at Hutzel's Woman Hospital.
Click here to watch the Laparoscopic Supracervical Hysterectomy Video.
