Can Doctors be wrong

[HeidiBester]

My boyfriends Father was diagnosed with lung cancer ,They found black sports on his bones in the scan ,but the took cancer scans and then said he not have cancer ,he wented in to the docter and they took a sample of that black stuff on his bones and told him he has lung cancer ,is it posable that after doing the cancer test they could be wrong because of the first test was negatif and now he has it?

[omhome]

sort of like my mistake!!!  boyfriend's dad    not your dad     yet??? HA!
guess i'm human   omhome

[omhome]

heidi: sorry about your dad--i have three daughters and they would be questioning and researching and getting second and third opinions etc. like crazy.
     To answer your question---i am 65 and have two docs in the family! Guess what. They make mistakes---
      So Yes they can and do make mistakes All The Time and the good ones admit them quickly! They are human. Humans are not perfect. Therefore
Doctors Make Mistakes!        Omhome

[Dr. Kokil Mathur]

Hi!
I can understand your confusions. While it is a bit complicated to explain this whole thing—I would simply say that PET and other cancer scans can give false positive and false negative results. On the other hand a bone biopsy will be more confirmatory. Usually the possibility of error in a biopsy is smaller than that of a scan. If in doubt the scan can be repeated. If that is not a possibility then the doctors would rely on bone biopsy report for diagnosis—which means that your friend’s father has cancer. Take care!