New tool helps women needing endometrial polyp removal save time and money

St. Charles Center for Women’s Health in Redmond has a new device that can be used to perform a minimally invasive procedure to remove tissue from the uterus.

Since getting the MyoSure tissue removal system at the clinic in June, OB-GYNs there have used it on more than half a dozen women to remove endometrial polyps. The small, soft growths are problematic because they can lead to heavy, painful periods and irregular bleeding in between cycles. The latter is especially important to investigate in postmenopausal women because of the risk of cancer, said Dr. Sarah Hellmann.

“There are a lot of women who we see who have very small polyps that still require the MyoSure, but who we really felt like would be good candidates for an in-office procedure,” she said. “The new device is smaller [than its hospital counterpart], so it’s more comfortable for the patient.”

The MyoSure can help some women avoid the time and cost associated with having a similar procedure in the hospital, which can take half a day, Hellmann said. In an outpatient setting, it takes less than an hour.

She explained that in the clinic, patients are pretreated with an oral medication and receive a local anesthetic. An instrument—a hysteroscope—is then placed in the uterus to identify the polyp. Another tool is inserted through the hysteroscope to cut and suction the tissue, which is collected in a trap and sent to pathology to make sure it's benign.

“Every single one of my patients has been comfortable, tolerated it very well and appreciated the savings in terms of time and cost,” Hellmann said.