Diagnostic Errors Kill Hundreds Of Thousands In US Each Year, Says Study

A recent study revealed that almost 800,000 Americans suffer from misdiagnoses each year, which is a worrying indicator for the US healthcare system.

According to a study that was conducted by scientists at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and released this week, misdiagnosis of disease causes about 371,000 fatalities and 424,000 permanent disabilities, such as brain damage, blindness, the loss of limbs or organs, or metastasized cancer, every year.

The researchers write in the report that just 15 diseases account for about half of all serious harm, so the problem may be more tractable than previously imagined.

"Diagnostic errors are, by a wide margin, the most under-resourced public health crisis we face," said Dr. David Newman-Toker, director of the Johns Hopkins Diagnostic Excellence Centre.

The top five most often misdiagnosed illnesses were lung cancer, sepsis, pneumonia, venous thromboembolism (blood clots in veins), and stroke, which together accounted for 38.7% of all cases of misdiagnosis.

"These are relatively common diseases that are missed relatively frequently and are associated with significant amounts of harm," Dr. David Newman-Toker, a neurologist at Johns Hopkins University, told CNN.

He led the study's research team from the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute Centre for Diagnostic Excellence, in partnership with researchers from the Risk Management Foundation of Harvard Medical Institutions, Inc.