Diagnosis Errors are Surprisingly Prevalent
The most commonly misdiagnosed conditions and diseases are breast cancer, tuberculosis, cancers of the lung, prostate, cervix, ovaries, and testicles, diabetes, heart attack (MI), stroke, meningitis, appendicitis, and pulmonary embolism. While the nature of misdiagnoses in general makes it completely impossible to compile accurate statistics on the occurrence in U.S. health care, loose data suggest that anywhere from 8% to 42% of diagnoses that are rendered contain some type of inaccuracy. The largest numbers of medical malpractice cases are based on misdiagnosis or even delayed treatment of serious medical conditions that result in a patient’s undue suffering or death. Interestingly, a great number of personal injury medical misdiagnosis cases originate in the emergency departments of hospitals across the country, where the rate of misdiagnosis is the highest across the board. Hospital intensive care units are the next highest, with one study finding at least a twenty percent rate of misdiagnosis. Many of these cases and claims involve non-typical presenting symptoms, such as a young man who complains of chest pain that ultimately leads to a heart attack being diagnosed with anxiety. Mistakes in the laboratory can also lead to personal injury claims in Plano for misdiagnosis, such as when a slide is sent to a pathologist who fails to identify cancer cells; in fact, a study was conducted nearly a decade ago that suggests that around 1.4 of 100 slides that were being examined for cancer failed to yield the correct diagnosis, including the diagnosis of some patients as having cancer that were actually cancer free (although they underwent chemotherapy without necessity).
