Patient wrongly diagnosed with cancer after biopsy sample contaminated by unclean forceps: inquest

A man died of post-surgical complications after he was wrongly diagnosed with lung squamous cell carcinoma based on a contaminated biopsy sample, a coroner has found.

The SA deputy state coroner said Dennis Jackson underwent a “misconceived” thoracotomy of his left upper lobe at the Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH) in 2018.

The procedure had been scheduled after a fine needle aspiration biopsy revealed a “free-floating fragment” of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) in one of his biopsy slides.

Staff realised his sample was negative for cancer, with DNA matching later confirming that his sample had been contaminated with a minute piece of tissue from a sample taken from another patient who did have SCC.

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