UK breast cancer patients wrongly given all-clear
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Twenty-two women were wrongly given the all clear at two Greater Manchester hospitals when they actually had breast cancer, a report on Tuesday revealed.
An investigation has now been launched into the misdiagnoses and the radiologist at the centre of the scandal has been suspended.
“It is absolutely frightful. I have certainly never been involved as anything as upsetting as this,” said Dr. Richard Campbell, medical director for Trafford Healthcare Trust.
The cases of nearly 2,500 women had to be reviewed and 176 were recalled to hospital to undergo another mammogram.
The incorrect diagnoses occurred at the North Manchester General Hospital and Trafford General Hospital.
Cancer experts who reviewed the cases have concluded that 17 of the 22 patients with breast cancer had a delayed diagnosis, which is likely to have worsened their survival chances.
About 41,000 women in Britain find out each year they have breast cancer and the speed of their diagnosis and treatment has a significant impact on survival rates, according to charity CancerBACUP.
Campbell told BBC radio one of the women had spent two years unaware she had the disease after she was given a clean bill of health.
“The women who call our helpline are already extremely anxious that they may have breast cancer and this report is bound to cause further anxiety about whether the results of their mammograms are reliable,” said Derryn Borley, Head of Cancer Support Services at CancerBACUP.
Campbell said breast cancers came in various forms. “Some of them are extraordinarily slow growing…so there could be a long delay with minimal growth of that tumour; in other cases, it might be a much shorter delay and a much more dramatic growth.”
The misdiagnoses were discovered following routine meetings between various clinical staff concerned with providing cancer care. When several experts disagreed last April with the X-ray findings of the suspended radiologist, a review was launched.
Tuesday’s report, The Breast Mammogram Review, examined the suspended radiologist’s work from April 2003. Health chiefs have stressed it did not relate to the NHS national breast screening programme, which has its own staff and procedures.
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