A serious malfunction in a cancer diagnostic device: fear that patients received the wrong treatment

Serious malfunction in cancer diagnostic devices: The “Roche” company reported to the Ministry of Health that a malfunction occurred in a series of devices that aid in the laboratory diagnosis of cancerous tumors, which means a rare risk of receiving a false positive result and receiving incompatible treatment.

The malfunction was reported to the Ministry of Health this week after hospitals found a discrepancy between the results of the test devices and other test findings of patients. The Roche company checked and found that there was indeed a malfunction in the batch of laboratory tests for some of the cancerous tumors. These tests are part of the set of tests, but they may be extremely significant in deciding on the type of tumor and the treatment to be given.

The malfunction means that patients may have received a false positive result for a certain cancer – while the cancerous tumor is different, or it is not cancerous at all – and received the wrong treatment. The extent of the malfunction is still unclear and the office does not yet know how many patients were affected as a result of the malfunction. However, the Ministry of Health stressed that the test is only part of the process of diagnosing certain tumor diseases and to diagnose cancer additional tests are used.

The Ministry of Health stated: “After consulting the professionals in the ministry with experts in the field of pathology, it seems that a qualified and skilled pathologist will be able to identify the wrong diagnosis. However, the head of the medical division instructed the hospitals to conduct an examination of the cases in which a positive result was received and to update the ministry as many cases were found in which There was a misdiagnosis.”