Breast Cancer Misdiagnosis: a critical issue
There have been many lawsuits related to the misdiagnosis of breast
cancer. There have been women diagnosed with cancer, undergone
treatment, and ultimately surgery – only to find out later that there
was no cancer at all. Whether it is a misdiagnosis of breast cancer or
failing to diagnose leading the delayed diagnosis, the patient should
take some responsibility to get second opinions. Trust your instincts,
if you feel something is wrong, it probably is. Misdiagnoses happen more
often that you think it does. It is very common. It can occur due to an
error by the doctor’s office, a breakdown in the process at the
laboratory, or the incorrect test being done on the patient to diagnose
correctly and, surprisingly, the patient as well.
With the prevalence of over 20,000 diseases that we know about, it is
understandable that doctors misdiagnose patients from time to time.
However, it is not excusable. Typically, doctors only know or recognize
what is most common in their practice. This leads to misdiagnosis and,
at times, over diagnosis. If they see the same condition enough,
everything begins to look the same or familiar. So a less common disease
with similar symptoms might get overlooked. Additionally, not all
doctors have same skill level and experience. That is why we have
general practitioners and specialties. A specialist should have a higher
skill level into a specific illness. The key determining the illness to
make the correct specialist is selected. Cost is also a factor. Some
doctors concerned about managing the cost of healthcare may not
recommend certain tests because the insurance may not cover it or the
patient can afford to pay for various tests. In the author’s opinion,
one of the most driving factors of misdiagnosis is lack of time. It
seems almost impossible to diagnosis a condition properly within a 15
minute time span. Most doctors’ appointments have to occur within a mere
¼ of an hour. Doesn’t seem like enough time to ask the right questions
(on both the doctor and the patient’s part), get the right answers,
research the symptoms, and make an educated tentative diagnosis. Most
times, it sounds like educated guesses that by luck of the draw may hit
the mark.
It seems that laboratories take the brunt of the blame when it comes to
misdiagnoses of breast cancer. It could be anything from the process to
human error. These tests are useful for diagnosing breast cancer but it
is not a perfect science. This goes back to the previously mentioned
situation where a woman’s test results got mixed up with someone else’s
test result. Because of this, she was diagnosed with cancer, and
underwent breast surgery to have a double mastectomy erroneously. They
report that errors are rare but apparently not rare enough. Then there
are also the false positives and false negatives that we have heard
about. This would refer to the margins of error potential of any test. A
false positive means that you have a condition when you really do not
and the opposite with a false negative. Nevertheless, it is hard to tell
sometimes when that occurs.
Lastly, to hold the patient accountable for their diagnosis or lack of
diagnosis seems crass. However, the patient is an integral part of the
diagnosis process. Sometimes, women think that if they don’t “feel any
lumps then they don’t need to seek a clinical breast examination. Other
times, women don’t take advantage of the 15 minute appointment to tell
doctors everything they need to know to make an accurate diagnosis. They
may forget some symptoms, think some are embarrassing, or think it is
irrelevant to the discussion. As such, the doctor doesn’t get all the
facts up front. |
