A prescription error with serious consequences: suffering from cancer, she received 20 radiotherapy sessions on the wrong breast

Une patiente reçoit 20 radiothérapies pour un cancer, sur le mauvais sein. (illustration) MAXPPP – Guillaume BONNEFONT

Une patiente atteinte d'un cancer du sein et reçoit un traitement pendant un mois, jusqu'à l'institut de cancerologie de Bourgogne se rende comptequ'il a été effectué sur le mavais sein.

An error that can have serious consequences. On March 26, the Burgundy Cancer Institute, which is located in the premises of the Parc Drevon polyclinic in Dijon, noticed that: #39;a patient with breast cancer, had received 20 sessions of radiotherapy on the wrong breast, reveals France 3 Bourgogne.&nbsp ;The Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) decided to draw up an incident report on April 10, without anything being communicated to the press beforehand.

Where does the error come from ?

It all started last January, when a patient underwent an operation for cancer in her left breast. Once the tumor is removed, she must undergo several sessions of radiotherapy to eliminate the remaining cancer cells. So far, nothing unusual.

But at the end of January, during the first consultation, the mistake was made. "At the end'following the consultation, the doctor immediately writes, manually, the medical prescription on the patient's paper file, mentioning in the treatment plan section, a treatment to be carried out on the right breast, and in the diagnostic section, a diagnosis on the left breast", explains ASN, contacted by our colleagues. "All other processing steps were carried out without detecting this error", she continues. The incomprehension is total.

It is thanks to a post-treatment follow-up consultation that the error is detected and is classified as level 2: & quot;event causing or likely to cause a moderate alteration of an organ or function", specifies France 3. A doctor from the Dijon cancer institute is rather reassuring and assures that the treatment did not cause side effects, apart from some skin effects such as redness, but which resolved subsequently."

Since then, the patient has started a new treatment, the right one this time.