How did this happen? UK's
Daily Mail shares the story of Peter Cura, 31, who died from complications of kidney cancer, after his kidney cancer
was misdiagnosed 37 times. Cura kept going in to see doctors, complaining of severe back pain. After undergoing
diagnostic scans and six operations, no one accurately diagnosed his physical problems as cancer. At one point, Cura
thought he might have cancer, but the doctors told him he was suffering from kidney stones. Cura insisted on a CAT
scan. The CAT scan revealed he was in kidney failure. When they surgically removed the failed kidney, the physicians
found a three inch tumor. By that time, the cancer had spread. The diagnosis became incurable kidney cancer. Cura, a carpenter from Rainham, died last week. In an interview before his death, he spoke of his anger that the delay of a timely cancer diagnosis would cost him his life. He felt great sadness that he would not see his young children grow up. "I mainly feel anger with the doctor I was seeing at the time," said Cura, "It crossed my mind that it might be cancer. But when I asked the doctor he said, "Definitely not." It seems Cura was doing all the right things to try to get proper medical care for himself, and the healthcare system failed him miserably. What a tragic, tragic loss, for Cura and his family.
1. I don't think this is all that rare. It mirrors my experience with prostate cancer.
I had been complaining of lower back pain for several years despite being fairly lean and fit and having good muscle tone. After my GP ordered many tests including an ESR test that returned a high score, but remarkably, not a PSA test (!) I checked into the hospital emergency ward for the second time in two months presenting severe abdominal, hip and chest pains as well as severe constipation.
The resident missed it for a second time, but a duty doctor was suspicious enough to look at a month old barium scan of my lower abdomen. Instead of focusing on the previously suspected diverticulitis, she immediately made the correct diagnosis. I saw the tests she was ordering and without being told, knew immediately both what the diagnosis, and sadly, the prognosis were. The time wasted with incorrect and non-diagnosis of the problem will eventually cost me several years of my life.
I am now taking chemotherapy, including a promising stage 2 trial and am keeping my spirits and hopes up, but I and Mr. Cura are not the first or last people to have a cancer diagnosis bungled by an inattentive, incompetent or just less knowledgeable doctor.
One of the bigger challenges facing cancer fighters will become educating doctors of the many known of cancer, and that further, if they are unable to make a positive diagnosis of a less deadly cause of a patient's symptoms, they should start with tests for common types of cancer. As cancer becomes more common and present in younger and younger members of the populace, it should become more a part of the doctor's list of suspected conditions to test for.
As a young technician, I was indoctrinated with the saying "Common things occur commonly, uncommon things do not. If you hear hoof beats, don't suspect unicorns." Cancer is less and less the unicorn and more and more the horse. Many doctors will need to change their thinking on this to lessen the number of sad outcomes like Mr. Cura's.
Posted at 5:14PM on Mar 19th 2006 by Edward Smart