21 Women With Breast Cancer Given All Clear By Radiologist

A radiologist in Manchester wrongly gave the all clear to 21 women who had breast cancer. A report says that this could "significantly alter" their chances of fighting and surviving the disease.

It is reported that one woman had the cancer diagnosed two years after she was given a clean chit by the radiologist, who is not being named by hospital bosses in Manchester. The said radiologist worked at Trafford General and the North Manchester General hospitals. The news of this misdiagnosis was first heard of in April and after the findings were confirmed, his employers suspended the radiologist. Overall 2,495 mammograms were reviewed. These dated back to April 2003, when the radiologist first joined the trust. Dr Richard Campbell, medical director at Trafford said that around 28 cases with breast disease had been identified and they had been informed about the error, "None have died. It is possible we think in 17 cases, out of 22, the delay in diagnosis was long enough that it might alter their outcome. The longer the delay, then of course, your risks are going to go up," he confirmed. Chris Harrison, from Greater Manchester Strategic Health Authority said that on behalf of the trust he had conveyed his apologies to the patients, "We will be commissioning a full, independent investigation into the circumstances of this incident to identify the route causes, what underlies this, what can we learn from it and how can we prevent it from happening again," he said. Patients can call at these helplines for more clarifications 0161 455 0059 for Trafford or 0161 656 1999 for North Manchester.