Mary Ann Benitez and Bryan Wong
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
A pathologist at United Christian Hospital filed inaccurate reports on 118 patients, leading to serious misdiagnoses and treatment in 17 of them.
Hospital management and senior doctors yesterday bowed and apologized for the "unacceptable" mistakes in 5.5 percent of the pathologist's 2,153 cases from October 2013 to May this year.
Three reports by the female pathologist were originally found to be inaccurate during a routine review of the department of pathology in late May, which was "rare" and prompted a review of all her reports from October.
The pathologist was named a fellow of the Hong Kong College of Pathologists in September 2013 after seven years' training, specializing in anatomical pathology.
Since then, she has been suspended from issuing reports independently and has taken leave until November.
A review of the 2,153 reports was completed last week, 118 of which were found to require content revision.
"Out of these 118 reports, we concluded that 17 involved pathological diagnostic errors, which would lead to change in clinical management," said Kowloon East cluster chief executive and UCH chief executive Chui Tak-yi.
Of the 17 misdiagnoses, 15 patients need to undergo minor changes in treatment regimes, while two require significant treatment changes.
Two women whose cancer risks were missed went back to the hospital yesterday. The hospital is contacting the 15 others and has set up an inquiry hotline at 3949-7994.
The 17 patients comprised e
One woman who had a lump in her breasts underwent a lumpectomy. Initial tests did not discover any cancer cells and it was only during later tests that cancer cells were identified around the tumor.
Chow Tam-lin, chief of service at the hospital's department of surgery, stressed that although treatment of the patient was delayed, the patient's cancer cells are low grade and not currently aggressive.
The other case involved a woman who had undergone surgery to remove an endometrial polyp. The pathologist diagnosed endometritis, but the review found she had cell growth that could turn cancerous.
The patient was contacted by UCH last week and returned yesterday for follow-up treatmemt and, if required, surgery.
Three patients have died since the discovery of the faulty reports, but the hospital said they were not linked to the misdiagnoses.
Hong Kong College of Pathologists president Annie Cheung Nga-yin expressed surprise.
Cheung, a clinical professor at the University of Hong Kong, said the college places importance on the quality of training of its fellows, with examinations and training bench- marked to UK and Australian standards.
UCH randomly selects 10 percent of all pathology reports to review every month. The hospital said this is an additional measure as the requirement by the Department of Health is only 1 percent of total reports annually.
A Hospital Authority spokesman told The Standard: "All public hospital anatomical and cellular pathology laboratories have to meet the laboratory accreditation requirement for quality assurance, such as peer review and clinical audits."
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=11&art_id=148287&sid=42791434&con_type=3&d_str=20140812&fc=2
