Misdiagnosed cancer patient launches a global directory of medical misdiagnoses

An Australian based British app developer has launched a global directory of medical misdiagnoses, to raise awareness about the issues of medical misdiagnosis and to enlighten patients who could be facing the same fate as his own.

Clive France needlessly suffered two and half years of agonising leg pain, long sleepless nights and valuable lost time treating a misdiagnosed DVT that turned out to be cancer. 

After years of searching the internet for clues to what else might be causing the debilitating pain, he became acutely aware of a notable lack of misdiagnosis data available to the public. 

In many cases, these sorts of diagnostic errors are often not even contemplated by patients in the first place, when they should be.

An Australian study of US medical diagnostic data, published in the Medical Journal of Australia, suggests that up to 1 in 7 medical diagnoses could be wrong. 

A separate study from The John Hopkins University reports that 1 in 3 cases of misdiagnosis results in severe injury or death and that medical errors are the third leading cause of death, after heart disease and cancer.

“With those statistics in mind and my own dire experience in finding relevant data, I realised a need to create a free to use, patient-driven directory of medical misdiagnoses. To facilitate more misdiagnosis awareness and foster more discussion between patient and medical practitioner,” said Clive France, the project’s developer.

“What’s out there is often hard to find, hard to decipher or simply non-existent from a patient perspective,” he continued. 

The site, launched today, is free to use and allows anyone to traverse a wealth of data, searching on symptoms, misdiagnoses, or correct diagnoses.

“We are also actively encouraging misdiagnosed patients to add their misdiagnosis to the system. It’s easy to use, and their experience could potentially save lives.” Clive said.