£1.5 Million Payout for Delayed Diagnosis of Lung Cancer

Because the tumour was not identified at the time of the original scan, it continued to grow and required significantly more invasive treatment.

This caused lasting harm, leaving her with memory difficulties, mobility problems and severe respiratory impairment. It also had a profound impact on her personal life, leaving her unable to work or follow her plan to adopt children.

She sought the help of specialist medical solicitor, Caroline Moore, to make a medical negligence claim against the NHS trust responsible for her care.

Case summary

The claimant ‘C’ underwent an MRI scan after experiencing amenorrhea, or missing periods. She was 39 at the time so considered to be under the average age for menopause.

The scan revealed a large mass on her left ovary measuring around 6 cm. However, the MRI also showed a smaller 1.5 cm mass in the upper lobe of her left lung. This finding was not reported by the hospital at the time.

A few months later, the ovary and mass were surgically removed. She was advised that it was a benign granulosa cell tumour and that no further treatment was required. As a result, the mass in her lung was not investigated.

Over the following months, her health began to deteriorate. She developed a persistent cough and became increasingly unwell to the point of being admitted to hospital as a medical emergency.

Further investigations revealed a tumour in her right ovary as well as a mass in her left lung. Doctors initially advised that she had developed a rare and aggressive form of small-cell ovarian cancer that had spread to her lung and she was told her chances of surviving two years were less than five percent.

She underwent extensive treatment, including surgery and multiple cycles of chemotherapy in an attempt to shrink the lung tumour. When the mass initially became too large to operate on, chemotherapy was used to reduce its size and C insisted it was removed through a lung lobectomy.

C then endured further aggressive treatment including stem-cell retrieval, high-dose chemotherapy with a bone marrow transplant, and radiotherapy to her chest and brain.

Later expert review of her histology revealed that the tumours in both ovaries and the lung had in fact been caused by an unusually aggressive form of granulosa cell cancer.

Experts concluded that the fact she had survived far longer than expected strongly suggested she had never been suffering from the previously diagnosed small-cell ovarian cancer.

A radiology expert later identified that the original MRI scan had clearly shown a suspicious mass in her lung and that the lung metastases had been missed when reporting.

If this finding had been identified at the time, further investigations would have taken place much earlier. She would likely have undergone more extensive surgery, including removal of both ovaries and the lung mass, and would have required far less aggressive treatment overall.

Before her illness, she had been pursuing a career as a clinical psychologist and was expected to progress to consultant level. However, the long-term effects of her treatment left her permanently disabled and unable to return to work. She also took early payment of her pension because she believed she might not live long enough to benefit from it later.

She and her husband had been in the process of adopting a child and had been considered strong candidates. Following her disability, she still wished to adopt but would require additional practical support to raise a child.

Litigation

C brought a claim against the hospital for failing to report the abnormality on her MRI scan. The hospital admitted that it had breached its duty of care by failing to identify and report the lung mass, and accepted that the delay allowed the tumour to grow. However, it disputed the extent to which earlier diagnosis would have reduced the treatment required.

The case was ultimately settled, and the claimant received £1,500,000 in compensation.