TAH: Vertical or Horizontal?

Hi ladies,
I'm curious. My physician told me, due to my diagnosis, she would have to make a vertical incision. I have complex hyerplasia with atypia, and there is a possiblity of concurrent endometrial cancer.

If you had a total abdominal hysterectomy, was your incision vertical or horizontal?

Further, if you had a similar diagnosis where cancer might be indicated, were you told the incision was to be vertical?

From what she said, I gather the reasons are to remove my enlarged uterus intact (and in my case ovaries and Fallopian tubes) and to have plenty of room for lymph node dissection. I'm OK with her decision because she is doing what's best for my case. I'll discuss this all again with her next week at my pre-op appt.

Just wondering, though, if most incisions are one way or the other, or about half and half.

Thanks everyone.

I have a vertical incision one because I had severe adhesions from prior c sections and because I had so my damage they had to have more acess to that area, I have no idea what makes the decisions in other peoples cases but I know in my case they did not want to cut the same area since I already had prior c sections.

I had a bikini cut, but my utures was not that big. Your DR. like you said is doing what is right for your case. I don't think you have a choice with how they do it but you might still want to discuss this with your Dr. They don't want to chop it up in order to remove it because they send it out for testing and have a pathology report on it. So they use the incision area to remove the utures as whole as they can.

My mother had a vertical incision due to ovarian cancer. Her surgeon told her that they could not go in horizontal because of risk to cancer spreading and the risk to other organs. However, my TAH surgery will be done horizontally. There is no suspicion of cancer, however, my ovaries will go straight to pathology.

I wish you luck. ~J~

HavanaIL
I had the same diagnosis as you they went vertical because of the reasons you gave..this way everything came out intact..and they had lots of room to view everything else while they were in there.. they also did a "wash" my cancer was confined to the inside of the uterus although it only had a cm to go before the wall would've burst..there were cysts on the ovaries, cervix and tubes. I'm glad they took everything out at once. I too trusted my surgeon she was great..I know its an emotional decision but it's all worth it in the end. The vertical takes a little longer to heal, from what I was told..but I'm 7 wks now and everything looks good ..I feel great physically..I still get very emotional but each day is better. Good Luck ..remeber the cars we have in the end are "Scars of Survival"..we're the lucky ones!!

Same as you; vertical incision due to endometrial cancer. The oncologist said she had to remove my uterus in one piece and in cases of cancer, she always does a vertical incision (gives her the most room and the best field of vision).

My incision goes from my belly button to just above my neither-regions . S'okay with me, tho, as I'm WAY past the "wear a bikini" stage of my life!

Hi- My TAH will be done due to enlarged uterus and 13cm fibroid. I had a c-sect 8 yrs ago and asked my doc if we could use that scar. He said he can use the bikini scar at the skin level, but underneath will need to cut vertically to remove it all. I am glad he can do this. I'm trying not to think about it that much.....! Big day is July 31st! Good luck to you!

Hello there , I too had a verticle cut . Im 17 days post op and had a TAH/BSO everything came out plus a tumor that was on my ovary. Im still trying to heal because i developed a senoma in my incision. A soma is a pocket of what would come out of a drain.its an excess of blood , brownish discharge , and all the fluids that have built up in the incision. I have to have homecare for 2 weeks more till the sonoma closes up. The nurse comes daily and " Packs" the wound with dressings and ointment. I also have a staph infection in the incision site called MRSA so im on antibiotics for that and still on pain meds. I had a nice pain managment dr in the hospital . She sent me home with a month supply of pain meds percocets..oxycontin (Morphine tabs) and an antibiotic. Good luck with you all ... if i can do it ....you CAN do it lol !

I had the horizontal cut. Never had a C-section; wasn't diagnosed with cancer, just enlarged uterus, fibroids and crowded tubes and ovaries. As I read here, sounds like the vertical cut is more typical for cancer diagnosis and certainly makes sense to me why. Best wishes out to you all for your speedy recoveries!