Very frequently we are told that most cancer patents present late when the disease is too advanced to be cured.

I, however, recently met a woman in her late 50s who had been undergoing routine annual medical check ups, including screening for cervical cancer, and has had a clean bill of health as recent as October 2015 - yet here she is now, presenting with advanced cancer of the cervix.

From her recollection, she had been having symptoms of the disease over the last three years. She had been going for testing in one of the high end hospitals where an expert in that specialty assured her that all was well.

While being diagnosed with cancer is a dreaded and anxiety producing event, learning that you or a loved one is at an advanced stage of cancer due to diagnostic error can be devastating. In many instances, early detection often means the difference between survival and death since most forms of cancer respond to treatment when detected early.

A suspicion of cancer may come about through a routine physical exam, due to results of a screening test or other laboratory tests, or because of symptoms which you bring to your doctor’s attention. It is not the patient’s responsibility to know that their symptoms may indicate cancer, that is the doctor’s responsibility. Cancer can be overlooked or misdiagnosed in many ways including failure to:

Perform a thorough and complete physical examination, take a careful and detailed history, adequately follow up or communicate with the patient, recognise early warning signs and symptoms, recommend or offer cancer screening, recommend tests due to financial concerns.

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This can also occur due to improper performance or interpretation of radiological or laboratory testing, failure to refer patient to appropriate specialists and communication errors between doctors and medical facilities.

For the patient, being diagnosed with cancer is never anything short of a devastating experience. Your whole world seems to come to a sudden halt and a million thoughts and questions race through your mind: “Why didn’t my doctor figure this out sooner”? “Why have we wasted valuable time”? “Why didn’t they listen to what I had to say’?

The fear that you had initially felt while sitting in the doctor’s office that horrible day soon manifests into anger and frustration towards your doctor.

One important thing that you must continue to remind yourself, though, is the fact that your doctor did not give you cancer. Mistakes do happen. Doctors are only human.