A CO Kildare woman with pneumonia died in hospital after she was misdiagnosed, an inquest has heard. A verdict of medical misadventure was recorded. The coroner said a misleading CT scan had hampered a proper diagnosis.
Rosanna Dunne (54), Old Greenfield, Maynooth, died of pneumonia on July 23rd, 2010, after being wrongly diagnosed by doctors at Connolly Hospital, Blanchardstown, Dublin.
Ms Dunne was admitted to the hospital on June 27th, 2010, complaining of pain in her abdomen and constipation. Doctors decided she needed a laparoscopy in case she had a perforated gall bladder or appendix. However, her gall bladder was extremely inflamed upon examination, so it was decided against taking it out as to do so could cause more problems, general surgeon Parnell Keeling told the inquest. “Instead it was just washed out,” he said.
Ms Dunne made a satisfactory post-op recovery but her condition began to deteriorate on July 21st.
Dr Keeling told the inquest at Dublin County Coroners’ Court that results from a CT scan led doctors to believe Ms Dunne had a blockage in her abdominal aorta. He said the CT scan showed ischaemic changes in the kidney as well as vascular occlusion.
“It’s a bit disturbing a CT scan can report these findings when a pathologist can’t,” coroner Dr Kieran Geraghty responded. “The CT scan suggested a blockage in her abdominal aorta – pneumonia wasn’t picked up. The scan result wasn’t accurate for some reason.
“She wasn’t put on antibiotics the day before which might have stopped the pneumonia progressing – is that correct?”
Dr Keeling said yes.
A postmortem by Dr Iydam Tobbia, consultant pathologist at Connolly Hospital, found Ms Dunne had died of heart failure secondary to bilateral pneumonia. She would have had the pneumonia for the three days she was in hospital before her death.
Dr Tobbia said there was no physical evidence in her aorta to support what the CT scan was saying, adding “in most cases CT scans are very helpful but in some cases they can mislead”.
Giving a verdict of medical misadventure, Dr Geraghty said: “It is clear from the evidence Ms Dunne had pneumonia for several days and a CT scan hampered diagnosis.”
He said he was concerned there could be such a positive finding on the scan when the patient had pneumonia. He would be writing to the management of the hospital to check scans so such an incident would not occur again.