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The surgery she didn't need

A mixup caused a bay area woman to be misdiagnosed with breast cancer. Now the fight starts to find out who messed up.

By CHRIS TISCH
Published April 3, 2006

	[Times photo: Kathleen Flynn]
	Jean Wingo says her faith got her through a false diagnosis and a lumpectomy, and she wants to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Jean Wingo feared the worst when the surgeon called. A few days earlier, the surgeon had removed a golf ball-sized chunk of Wingo's right breast after a biopsy detected cancer.

Wingo suspected the surgeon was calling because the operation hadn't gotten it all.

Instead, Wingo learned she never had cancer. The diagnosis was a mistake. The lumpectomy was unnecessary.

"I just broke down in tears," Wingo said. "Although I was greatly relieved that I didn't have cancer . . . I had gone through all that for nothing. It should have never happened."

Wingo, 59, is suing Largo Medical Center, where she received her biopsy, and AmeriPath Florida, the lab that analyzed the tissue. The surgeon is not named in the suit.

Wingo's attorneys say another patient's cancerous tissue somehow contaminated Wingo's sample, though it's unclear where and how that happened.

Largo Medical Center spokeswoman Sandy Gourdine said the hospital typically doesn't comment on pending lawsuits, though she did say the hospital now analyzes its own samples rather than send them to an outside lab.

Asked if that change had anything to do with Wingo's case, Gourdine said: "I'm not commenting on that question at all."

Juan Ruiz, an Orlando attorney who represents AmeriPath Florida, also said he could not comment.

Wingo said the mistake upset her family. Before finding out she didn't have cancer, Wingo and her two adult daughters had to discuss her possible death and whether she would be buried or cremated.

The mistake also diminished Wingo's trust in the health care system. Last year, she refused to get her annual mammogram for fear the same thing would happen.

"I just can't bring myself to have another one," said Wingo, who lives in Clearwater. "Maybe next year I will. But I just don't want to be bothered by it all."

Wingo, who was insured, has paid about $2,000 for the unnecessary surgery. She still owes more and collection agencies have been calling her home for a year now.

Cancer experts say what happened to Wingo is unusual. "It's extremely rare," said Jessica Watson, a spokeswoman for Breastcancer.org. "A terrible thing to have happened, but extremely rare."

Still, mistakes in breast cancer procedures have been reported before.

Perhaps the most widely reported case is that of a Minnesota woman who had both breasts removed in 2002 after her paperwork was mixed up with another patient's. The hospital apologized.

In 1998, operating staff at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa confused two breast cancer patients and removed one woman's entire left breast when she was only supposed to have a small tumor removed. The Florida Board of Medicine fined the surgeon $5,000. In 1996, a Fort Lauderdale radiotherapy center was fined $250 for mistakenly treating a woman's left breast with radiation. The treatment should have been to her right breast.

Wingo's attorneys said they have reported the case to the Florida Department of Health, though it's unclear if it is investigating.

Wingo, who was born and raised in England, said there is no history of breast cancer in her family. She had a biopsy in 2003 after a mammogram found calcification on the left breast, but the results were negative. When the same thing was detected on her right breast in a November 2004 mammogram, she had another biopsy, but wasn't worried.

But her doctor said she had breast cancer.

"I was shocked," said Wingo, a program aide at a local services agency. "I thought maybe they made a mistake. I said to her on the phone: "Are you sure this is correct? Are you sure this is right? Is it my biopsy?' I asked her that from the start and she said yes."

After tear-soaked talks with her daughters, Wingo went to see her doctor and was scheduled for chemotherapy, radiation, chest X-rays and other tests. Her surgery was set for January 2005. The surgeon also planned to remove part of a lymph node in case the cancer spread.

"I accepted it after that. You take their word for it. They're the professionals," she said.

Wingo, who is a Christian, said her faith, family and church helped her through the ordeal.

"I believed that God would see me throughout this," she said. "And he has."

A few days after the procedure at St. Petersburg General Hospital, the surgeon called Wingo and told her to come in and talk.

"I immediately thought: "Oh dear, something else is wrong. They've found something else.' I thought the worst," Wingo said. "I thought maybe they missed something.

"And when I went in, she told me, "Well, we've got good news and bad news. The good news is we don't think you had cancer to begin with. The bad news is that you had to go through with this unnecessarily."'

The surgeon learned this after a pathologist analyzed the removed tissue and found no signs of cancer. A DNA test later confirmed that the tissue analyzed after Wingo's biopsy was not hers.

Wingo's attorneys, Thomas D. Masterson and Gregory J. Hoag, said they have looked into whether any other patients were misdiagnosed because they were mistakenly matched with Wingo's tissue sample.

So far, nothing.

The attorneys believe Wingo's tissue was contaminated either at Largo Medical Center or the AmeriPath Florida lab, though they have received no definitive explanation for how the error happened.

The attorneys also said they have learned some procedures were changed after the incident.

Wingo is not suing her doctor, the surgeon who performed the operation or St. Petersburg General Hospital. Her attorneys believe either Largo Medical Center or the lab - and perhaps both - are responsible for the error.

Wingo said she wants to be compensated but has a larger goal.

"I would like to think they would take more care wherever the negligence occurred . . . to make sure it doesn't happen again someday," she said. "They can learn from this."

Chris Tisch can be reached at tisch@sptimes.com or 727 892-2359.

[Last modified April 3, 2006, 08:46:14]