More than 500 Men Tested for Prostate Cancer Face Test Recheck
March 22nd, 2008 Posted in prostate cancer diagnosisCarmarthenshire NHS Trust, in west Wales, has sent out letters to 528 patients informing them a raft of complex rechecks must be carried out and their results must be reviewed after the discovery of potentially fatal testing errors.
The outcome could mean that some men who had been given the all clear after prostate biopsies will be called back. But the trust insists that only a small minority of patients will be directly affected, with the majority of checks confirming original results. In those cases where inaccuracies may have occurred, patients will be contacted directly by a hospital clinician or GP as soon as possible and their care will be reviewed.
An internal investigation is now underway in Carmarthenshire to establish whether the latest incident is the work of one person, or due to a more general systemic failure.
Tags: medical errors, testing errors
2 Trackback(s)