Two-Year-Old Died After Doctors Failed to Spot Growing Brain Tumor

An inquest into the death of a two-year old heard how doctors failed to spot a tumor growing in his brain until it was too late even as he slowly grew sicker. Max Earley from Harefield, West London, was taken to two different hospitals and seen by a number of doctors after falling ill in August of last year. However it was only when he had a violent fit, attempting to rip out his tubes and tearing at his own hair, that he was taken to specialist child neurologists Great Ormond Street Hospital where they diagnosed the tumor. Even though the doctors conducted an operation to remove the tumor, they were unable to save Max who died four days later.

The Westminster Coroner’s Court also heard Dr Christopher Williams, consultant radiologist at Hillingdon Hospital where Max was first seen, admit to wrongly reading the original CT scan. Dr Williams said that while he did see something in the scan, he did not identify it as a tumor.

Coroner Dr Shirley Radcliffe said that there were a number of factors to blame for Max’s death and added that she was to spend some time studying the case in order to come up with a way to ensure that such an incident does not happen again.

“Despite the lack of progress in the treatment of Max, no-one thought out of the box. We know all these factors and these are the things we are going to be looking at. I really want to spend quite a lot of time looking at how we can make sure it doesn’t happen again”, Dr Radcliffe said.



Source-Medindia