There are now ten Oregon women who’ve sued saying faulty breast cancer diagnoses subjected them to debilitating chemotherapy that they didn’t need.
In the newest lawsuit, filed last week, Shirley Hamilton says her chemotherapy left her with “permanent avoidable injuries” after a period in 2020 in which she experienced nausea, fatigue, hair loss and other side effects.
The suit, like others before it, faults alleged lab errors by Salem-based Pacific Pathology Associates as well as machines sold by Leica Biosystems Richmond, Inc, an Illinois manufacturer of medical equipment used by the Oregon firm.
Only in 2022, more than a year after treatment, did Hamilton’s physician tell her that she’d fallen victim to a “medical mishap” and her injuries stemming from chemo were unnecessary, according to the suit.
The raft of Oregon lawsuits punctuate an area of continuing debate over the extent to which breast cancer is being misdiagnosed or even overtreated, with researchers differing on questions such as the frequency of mammograms and even the accuracy of testing. Some cancerous cells are considered slow-growing, with physicians recommending they be closely monitored rather than treated.
The women filing the 10 lawsuits in Oregon court all say they were told they had fast-growing HER2 cancer, only to later allegedly be told that actually they did not have that after all, and that chemotherapy had been unnecessary.
One woman said she unnecessarily underwent a total abdominal hysterectomy as a result of her false HER2 positive diagnosis. Another said she unnecessarily suffered nausea, kidney injury and so much weight loss that her prosthetic legs no longer fit— forcing her to use a wheelchair for a year.
All ten of the suits, filed since 2022, are ongoing with several scheduled for trial.
None of the companies, nor a lawyer representing Pacific Pathology, responded to requests for comment from The Lund Report. In legal filings, Pacific Pathology Pacific Pathology is now owned by the Australia-based multinational laboratory services company Sonic Healthcare. Leica has not filed a legal response.
Woman’s diagnosis came in 2019
In July 2019, Hamilton’s physician took a biopsy of her right breast mass and sent a tissue sample to Pacific Pathology for testing, according to her suit.
Hamilton had been diagnosed with a Grade 2 invasive ductal carcinoma, an intermediate-grade cancer, and she was told her test result from Pacific Pathology determined she was positive for HER2, a protein that promotes the growth of cancer cells, according to the suit.
Hamilton’s physician directed her to cancer treatments, including chemotherapy, which she underwent for about a year beginning in November 2020.
In September 2022, Pacific Pathology left Hamilton a voicemail letting her know she had been part of a “medical mishap,” but did not include details, according to the lawsuit. Two months later, Hamilton’s physician told her more about the mishap, including that she was not HER2 positive and her treatment had been unnecessary.
The suit claims that Pacific Pathology discovered the problem well before alerting Hamilton, in January 2022. It states that the “tissue samples of a large number of women” were flawed.
“The HER2 positive directed therapy was unnecessary and harmful to (Hamilton),” the suit states.
