An October 2009 report from The Australian revealed a medical mistake involving a Japanese man who was mistakenly diagnosed with rectal cancer and was given an artificial rectum. While the information on this case is quite limited, it appears to be similar to other cases we have covered in that post surgical tests revealed no cancer in the removed tissue. The man is suing the hospital for 35 million yen or approximately $415,000 in compensation.
The source of the error is not revealed in the report; however, like the case of Scott Aprile, who had an unneccessary masectomy, it could have been due to a switching error where a patient's biopsy results are switched with those of another patient. If this type of error is not detected, it is often not until after an unnecessary surgical procedure that the mix-up is revealed.
Switching errors can be alleviated by the utilization of a specimen security system such as the know error® system, introduced by Diagnostic ID, LLC, in 2009. The know error® specimen security system uncovers patient identification errors by matching tissue from a positive biopsy result to a reference sample taken from a patient via a simple cheek swab to confirm that the tissue belongs to the patient. By peforming DNA matching prior to treatment, the know error® system assures that biopsy switching errors will be detected prior to any adverse patient outcomes.
For more information about the know error® specimen security system with unique patient code and DNA confirmation, please visit our web site at www.knowerror.com.
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