Laboratory company HSE is facing allegations from a woman claiming the lab gave her a false negative Pap smear result, which caused a late cervical cancer diagnosis.

According to the Irish Examiner, the claimant and her husband have also sued Sonic Healthcare Ltd. and US laboratory Clinical Pathology Laboratories, claiming each of the companies had failed to correctly process her Pap smear results, which allowed her cancer to spread to dangerous levels and is now a life threatening condition.

The case recently went to trial, with the claimant telling the High Court she had never suspected cervical cancer because she did not experience any symptoms.

The woman is a mother of two and says she was given her cervical cancer diagnosis over the phone just a few days before Christmas in 2015. She was diagnosed with Stage IV cervical cancer has since undergone palliative chemotherapy. Her prognosis is reportedly between 12 to 22 months.

The woman and her husband opted to file legal action against HSE and the other laboratory companies, after discovering they had tested her Pap smear slide in 2010 and had allegedly given her a false negative result. According to the couple’s lawyers, the “Rubicon moment” came in September 2018 when she was told her cancer was in operable.

It is important to note that at that point in time, the cancer had spread to at least one of her lungs and spread throughout her pelvis, but was recently diagnosed with secondary cancer in the lungs in August 2018 after a relapse.

Overall, the claimant says she has not felt like herself since and will most likely experienced a shortened life expectancy.

According to her lawyers, if her 2010 Pap smear exam had been correctly interpreted, the cancer would have been treated immediately.

It is important to note that cervical cancer is one of the most preventable forms of the cancer, largely in part due to Pap smear tests.

Overview of Pap Smear False Negative Problems

According to the American Cancer Society, women who undergo regular Pap smear exams should not have to worry about dying from cervical cancer.

However, there have been reports of late cervical cancer diagnoses due to false negative Pap smear results. According to the Moffitt Cancer Center, there are a number of factors that can contribute to a false negative Pap smear result including:

• Errors made by the healthcare professionals during the sample collection process
• Errors made by the healthcare laboratories processing and reporting the results
• Errors on the physician’s part by failing to recommend sufficient follow up tests on abnormal Pap smear results

The reported rise of false negative results is mostly blamed on overwhelmed laboratories, which get millions of Pap smear tests on a daily basis. According to the CDC, approximately 17.4 million healthcare office visits and 3.5 million outpatient department visits ordered Pap smear tests in 2014.

Under these circumstances, lab technicians, who are not provided the appropriate resources to do their jobs, may become overwhelmed — leading to misinterpretation in test results.

Millions of women and healthcare professionals rely on the accuracy of these Pap smear results and can be devastated by false negatives. This was allegedly the case for the claimant, who will most likely have to live with the effects of cancer treatment for the rest of her life.