Faulty breast-cancer test might have shortened my life: N.L. woman

A woman in Mount Pearl, southwest of St. John's, says faulty breast-cancer testing might have shortened her life, and she has lost faith inher local health board'sability to diagnose her problems.

Donna Howell was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2003. She had both breasts removed.

"I wanted to do everything I could to see if I could possibly prevent this from coming back," she said Wednesday.

She was given a hormone receptor test by Newfoundland and Labrador's Eastern Health authority to seewhether she could be treated with the drug tamoxifen, which has been shown to increase patients' survival rates.

Her test came back negative. So she did not receive the drug.

Two years later, she learned the test was wrong, and she could have been treated with tamoxifen.

In the meantime, she said, her cancer came back in the form of bone cancer throughout her body.

"You know, maybe [tamoxifen] would have made a difference in whether I get to live to see grandchildren, or I simply get to see my children educated," she said.

Howell's confidence in Eastern Health was further undermined when the agency told her she also had liver cancer. She went to Vancouver for a PET scan, which found no evidence of liver cancer.

Howell said she believes she has from one to seven years left to live. She said she haslost faith in Eastern Health and willcontinue to get a second opinion on everything it tells her.

Eastern Health won't comment about an individual patient. It said it will answer questions about the issue through a commission of inquiry in January, which has been called to investigate faults in hormone receptor tests done at its laboratory in St. John's.

Howell is also participating in a class-action lawsuit against Eastern Health.

Documents registered this spring in relation to the lawsuit showed that 939 hormone receptor test results have been sent to Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto for retesting.

The contested tests were done over an eight-year period, ending in 2005. Officials say that problems at the lab in St. John's have since been resolved.