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Abdominal Pain Misdiagnosed as Appendicitis Surgery Colon Cancer Hospital Compensation Diagnostic Inaccuracy Lack of AccountabilityThe patient presented with abdominal pain and was diagnosed with appendicitis, which led to surgery. One month later, the true cause was found to be colon cancer.
The final determination was that colon cancer had been misdiagnosed as appendicitis, resulting in an unnecessary operation.
The three core diagnostic criteria for appendicitis are fever, supportive laboratory findings, and migratory abdominal pain. Migratory pain, in particular, is central to differentiating appendicitis from other conditions. In this case, the patient had no fever before surgery. Preoperative blood work showed normal white blood cell and neutrophil counts. There was also no history of migratory abdominal pain. Without stronger efforts at differential diagnosis before proceeding to surgery, the case was ultimately shown to be a misdiagnosis. The extensive inflammatory changes in the ileocecal region on imaging were certainly noteworthy. However, in typical cases of appendicitis, imaging findings carry relatively lower diagnostic weight compared with clinical features and laboratory results.
When experiencing abdominal pain, contacting this service at the same time as seeking medical care could have helped avoid the misdiagnosis of appendicitis.
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