This would not be a first at the hospital in Tours. And until today, the information had not been recorded. As reported by France 3 Val de Loire, a serious medical error was committed. A woman being treated for breast cancer in the oncology and radiotherapy department of Bretonneau Hospital received radiotherapy on her healthy breast.
In her external beam radiation treatment, the patient had to receive ionizing radiation generated by a particle accelerator to destroy the cancer cells that would have remained after the surgery. Except that the breast treated, over the course of 28 sessions spread over 28 days, was not the right one.
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A laterality error (right-left inversion) occurred during the preparation of the treatment," said the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), which issued a communication in July after receiving a report from the hospital. "One of the factors that contributed to this laterality error could be related to the presence of discordant information in the report of the initial medical consultation," ASN also reports. The error would therefore have occurred at the beginning of the treatment, and the caregivers would have realized it only at the 25th session.
Risks of developing another cancer
The incident was rated level two on a severity scale of up to 7 on "unexpected or unpredictable effects" that can occur in the course of external beam radiation therapy. With this poor radiotherapy, the patient increases the risk, as for any person who has received radiation to the chest, of developing another radiation-induced cancer.
ASN also notes that the Touraine establishment has "already [been] confronted with this type of lateral error". Informed of the error, the patient should receive a new treatment, this time targeting the diseased breast.