A serious concern

Well, today I should have been marking assignments. However, my attention was caught by the headline in today's Observer. If you want to know why, read the articles at GPs warned over failure to diagnose cancers (this story will open in a new window if you click on it, so just close it to come back here). The stories told are all too horribly familiar.

Last year, I wrote here that my GP had advised me that although I didn't have to have radiotherapy, she thought I should, "Because we made a mistake before, so it would be better to have it than not" and my consultant gynaecologist remarked, "I'm sorry we missed it." (Not, of course, that there's any proof other than my word that these admissions were made). I was - and still am - angry that this happened, but I thought perhaps it was a very rare and unhappy accident.

Last week, Kylie Minogue confessed that her breast cancer had been misdiagnosed initially. Now we have newspaper articles telling us that cancers are regularly misdiagnosed. Even though such misdiagnosis is for "a minority" of people, that minority suffers and some even die. I could have died if I hadn't persisted in going back to my GP and my consultant. I could have been one of those statistics that everyone shakes their heads over and tuts.

The most worrying thing about this article for me - and reading it is why I haven't been able to set my mind to marking assignments today - is the fact that it seems that many misdiagnoses are based upon the statistical likelihood of a patient of a certain age suffering from cancer; thus, the article tells us, women below the age of 50 may well be told that there's nothing wrong with them when they present with what later is diagnosed as breast cancer. This cancer isn't common in younger women, but it does happen - I know women who were diagnosed in their 20s and 30s.

So, perhaps it's not surprising that my cancer was missed for so long. I was at an age where I might have been expected to be perimenopausal at least; some of my symptoms could have been confused with that, but this story in the Observer has really brought home to me the importance of insisting and insisting and insisting if you have any worrying symptoms. If your GP tells you "it's your age" or "you're depressed - have some anti-depressants" and doesn't refer you for tests, persist in asking for a referral. You'll be labelled a troublemaker, your GP's attitude towards you may be distinctly frosty or even unfriendly (my relationship with my GP had certainly deteriorated by the time I was diagnosed with cancer, and I admit that I took a certain amount of pleasure in going to see her to give her the news, if only for the look of horror on her face!) but ignore that - better to be unpopular than die of something that could have been cured if it had been caught early enough.

Today's thought: last year, it was a "postcode lottery" for cancer treatment that was scrutinised by the press. Now it's misdiagnosis. Would anyone have cared if someone as well-known as Kylie Minogue hadn't talked about her own experience?

So, Kylie deserves thanks for making the issue public, but what's going to happen as a result? How can fewer misdiagnoses (preferably NO misdiagnoses) be encouraged?