13,000 prostate cancer tests face review

Close to 13,000 prostate cancer tests carried out on patients who attended Mayo General Hospital have to be reviewed after it emerged the test kits were faulty.

The admission by the HSE that MGH is the second hospital to withdraw the faulty kit follows an Irish Examiner report yesterday that Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown ceased using the defective kits in June after being notified by the manufacturers, Siemens, that it was giving false positive readings, averaging 20%-23% too high.

The latest revelation comes ahead of the meeting today of the harmonisation board of the National Cancer Control Programme which is looking at how to standardise PSA (prostate specific antigen) testing across Irish hospitals. The need for standardisation was highlighted earlier in a research paper showing how six different test methods in use across nine hospitals produced significant variability in test results using the same patient samples.