2 Patients in Chiba Die after CT Scan Diagnostic Errors

June 10, 2018

Chiba- Chiba University Hospital said Friday that a woman in her 60s and a man in his 70s died after doctors failed to notice their diseases in their diagnoses based on computed tomography images.

"We are deeply sorry for causing tremendous burdens to patients and their families," Shuichi Yamamoto, director-general of the hospital, told a press conference.

The hospital has found similar diagnostic errors for a total of nine patients, including the two deceased. The errors affected treatments for four of the nine, it said.

According to the hospital in the city of Chiba, east of Tokyo, the female patient took a CT scan test in June 2013. Some of the results of imagery analysis by specialists indicated the possibility of kidney cancer, but her doctor did not notice this.

The cancer was discovered through another CT scan she took in October 2017. The patient died in December that year.

The male patient had a CT scan test in January 2016, but his doctor failed to find lung cancer because of a similar error. The patient died in April 2017.

Chiba University Hospital has 10 radiology specialists who analyze CT images and report the results to doctors.

The hospital said that in some of the nine cases, doctors did not check such analysis reports because they were not submitted in time or written at all.

In other cases, doctors overlooked diseases in areas outside their expertise even though analysis reports indicated the possibility of such diseases, the hospital said.

Similar diagnostic errors involving CT image analysis were found last year at Jikei University's hospital and the Yokohama City University Medical Center. Following the errors, some patients died. Jiji Press