Thirty-three women will undergo hysterectomies – the surgical removal of the uterus – in 2023 and 2024 after being misdiagnosed with early-stage uterine cancer in Sweden, hospital management announced today.

“We are deeply sorry for what happened. Hysterectomy is a major operation with extensive and irreversible consequencessaid Johan Lughnegaard, chief physician at Uppsala University Hospital in eastern Sweden.

“We apologize to the women in question“, he added.

After the tests, the women in question, aged between 38 and 85, were told they had cell changes that are a precursor to uterine cancer.

Therefore, surgery was planned and performed, according to the hospital.

However, it turned out that the diagnosis was wrong and surgery was not necessary.

On its own initiative, the hospital administration launched an investigation after noticing an inexplicable increase in the number of diagnoses of this type.

“We were overly strict in our assessments (…) which led to systematic overdiagnosis“, admitted Tomi Olofsson, head of the hospital’s university laboratory.

The hospital undertook to look into the history of similar cases and cleared the way for financial compensation to be paid to the 33 women.