Misdiagnosis leads to over 3.5 lakh deaths every year in US; forces 4.2 lakh to live with permanent disabilities: Study

What could be more unfortunate than death due to misdiagnosis of diseases as common as pneumonia, sepsis and blood clots in veins? A recent study by the John Hopkins School of Medicine revealed that around 3,71,00 fatalities have been recorded in the United States due to diagnostic errors every year. It further discovered that around 4,24,000 people in the country sustain permanent disabilties such as blindness, brain damage or metastasised cancer.

Diagnostic errors happen largely for a group of five conditions – sepsis, stroke, pneumonia, venous thromboembolism and lung cancer.

“These are relatively common diseases that are missed relatively commonly and are associated with significant amounts of harm,” Dr David Newman-Toker, the lead of the study, said as quoted by CNN.

For example, around 9,50,000 people in the US have a stroke every year, of which, around 18% cases are missed which lead to serious harms to around 94,000 people.

Similarly, an infection of the central nervous system called spinal abscess is misdiagnosed over 60% of the time.

Few common symptoms of stroke such as trouble speaking or moving an arm are easily attributable to the condition, but at times other associated symptoms headache or dizziness are generally missed during the diagnosis.

According to experts, misdiagnosis takes place commonly due to non-specific symptoms to symptoms that are less serious than the condition that is actually causing it.

“Occasionally, we have people who get inappropriate treatments for a disease they don’t have, and they suffer harms from that…Much more common is a life-threatening disease that is missed because the manifestations are milder or less obvious,” Newman-Toker said.

However, the study said patients should not panic or lose faith in the health care system. There is less than 0.1% chance of someone being seriously harmed over misdiagnosis after a health care visit.