1995 Mr. Zhong (a pseudonym), who was still 23 years old, was diagnosed as "low-grade malignant angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma" because of lymphadenopathy. The doctor told him that his survival time might only be 30 months. With the trust of the doctor, Mr. Zhong accepted the treatment plan of chemotherapy.
In the next two years, Mr. Zhong received 9 times of chemotherapy in the hospital, and finally the doctor told Mr. Zhong that he had recovered. It was not until 1999 that Mr. Zhong's lymph nodes became swollen again that he realized that something was wrong. When I went to other places for treatment, the doctor did not give a diagnosis of lymphoma. The next year, Mr. Zhong was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, not lymphoma.
Nine times of chemotherapy not only brought great side effects of hair loss and vomiting to Mr. Zhong, but also caused serious damage to his immune system. Mr. Zhong took the hospital to court, and finally the court ruled that the hospital compensated Mr. Zhong for 6.5438+0.2 million yuan.
I'm afraid this 1.2 million can't offset Mr. Zhong's physical and mental injury caused by chemotherapy. A doctor's misdiagnosis has brought a devastating blow to patients.
In fact, misdiagnosis of cancer occurs from time to time, giving people the idea of "misdiagnosis if cancer is not cured". Is that really the case?
According to a paper published by Hopkins College in the journal Diagnostics, the survey data of more than 90,000 patients by researchers show that the misdiagnosis rate of cancer, infectious diseases and vascular diseases is quite high. Among 10 patients, 1 0 was misdiagnosed because of these three diseases, and about half of the misdiagnosed patients were disabled or even died for life.
Luo Rongcheng, a professor of oncology at Southern Medical University, said that misdiagnosis is a common problem in the medical field. Misdiagnosis exists both abroad and in China. However, due to the lack of statistical data in this field in China, authoritative data on misdiagnosis probability can not be issued so far.
Tang Feng, deputy director of the Department of Vascular Surgery of the First Affiliated Hospital of Tsinghua University, believes that the misdiagnosis in China is not necessarily more optimistic than that in the United States. First, the development of some fields in China is relatively slow, which makes the diagnosis more difficult. Second, there is a lack of statistics and follow-up research on misdiagnosed cases in China, which can not be improved in time.
Ji Xiaolong, chief physician of Pathology Department of Beijing General Hospital of Armed Police, pointed out that the misdiagnosis rate of cancer in China is about 30%. In other words, if a doctor in a hospital diagnoses you with cancer, there is a one-third chance that you are wrong. It is best to go to the second hospital and the second doctor to verify whether it is really diagnosed.
There are three main reasons why cancer is easily misdiagnosed:
Low level of doctors and backward medical technology: if doctors are not professional enough, they are prone to misjudgment in diagnosis, and some diseases mostly occur in specific areas. When they appear in other areas, doctors will misdiagnose them because of lack of experience. In addition, medical technology also has the limitation of accuracy, and many infectious diseases and cancers need to be diagnosed by testing. If there are errors in sensitivity and accuracy, it is easy to be misdiagnosed.
The symptoms of the disease are not obvious, and the concealment is strong: many cancers have no obvious symptoms in the early stage, and some are easily confused with other diseases, such as lymphoma. The 20 19 White Paper on Living Conditions of Lymphoma Patients in China pointed out that about 43% of the patients had the experience of misdiagnosis, because the symptoms of lymphoma were not obvious and atypical, and they were easily regarded as colds or other diseases.
Poor doctor-patient relationship: Now many patients have very low trust in doctors and hospitals. They think that doctors will mislead them to do some unnecessary tests in order to get more commission. Some patients will hide their past medical history because they don't trust doctors, so doctors can't make a correct diagnosis, so they are misdiagnosed.
If cancer is diagnosed at first and then cured, is it a misdiagnosis?
In fact, after treatment, many cancers can be cured, which is not a misdiagnosis.
Zeng Weigen, a general surgeon at Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, said that the treatment effect of cancer in three cases is quite impressive:
First, early cancer, when the tumor has not spread and metastasized. As long as some parts are operated, good therapeutic effects can be achieved, so as to achieve long-term survival, such as early breast cancer and gastric cancer, and the cure rate can exceed 90%.
Second, tumors with low malignancy, such as prostate cancer and differentiated thyroid cancer, develop slowly and belong to inert cancer. The patient received good treatment and lived for a long time. For example, the cure rate of papillary thyroid carcinoma is as high as 95%.
Third, tumors that are sensitive to treatment, such as some rectal cancers, are very sensitive to radiotherapy and chemotherapy. About 20% patients received radiotherapy and chemotherapy at the same time after operation, so that all cancer cells were eliminated and cancer was cured. These patients have a long survival time.
What can doctors and patients do to avoid misdiagnosis?
Zhang Xiaotian, an expert from Peking University Cancer Hospital, said that in order to avoid misdiagnosis, we should pay attention to the following two points:
1, looking for doctors and hospitals with better skills.
Compared with provincial medical resources, municipal hospitals and doctors are relatively backward. If cancer is diagnosed in a small hospital, it is best to go to a big hospital for another examination. Provincial hospitals have more advanced medical equipment and more professional doctors who are more experienced in cancer diagnosis and treatment.
2. Diagnostic evidence should be sufficient.
For doctors, patients should not be judged only by imaging examination or clinical diagnosis, but should be given sufficient diagnostic evidence. If you are not sure about your diagnosis, you can consult and don't harm the patient because of misdiagnosis. Generally speaking, the diagnosis of cancer requires clinical diagnosis, imaging diagnosis and other steps, and the "gold standard" of cancer diagnosis is the diagnosis of histopathology, which is the most accurate.
Terrible misdiagnosis adds new pain to the patient's pain. To avoid misdiagnosis, patients and medical workers need to work together! # Health and Thermal Energy Program # # Cancer Science Qualifying Competition #
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