Hospital defends misdiagnosis review

St James’ Hospital has defended its decision not to extend a review of the work of a pathologist whose failure to detect invasive breast cancer in a woman left with lifelong health problems.

In a statement, the hospital said “no evidence of further missed diagnosis had arisen” in the near eight years since a pathologist incorrectly told Alison McCormack, then aged 35, her breast cancer was non-invasive.

Alison featured in an interview with the Irish Examiner in 2011, the year after she was diagnosed at St James’ with DCIS (Ductal carcinoma in situ), a localised form of breast cancer.