A medical error transformed a healthy woman into a chronic patient: useless steroids and chemotherapy for a false lymphoma, unmasked by a subsequent biopsy. The appeal doubles the compensation, but Daniela Montesi is still struggling with the after-effects of the treatment.
For four years — from 2007 to 2011 — Daniela Montesi, now 65 years old, underwent cycles of chemotherapy, cortisone and steroids for an intestinal lymphoma which it didn’t exist. The story begins when the woman goes to a hospital in the province of Pisa for orthopedic surgery: pre-hospitalization tests reveal a discrepancy in her white blood cell count and the operation is postponed. After a bone marrow and intestinal biopsy she was diagnosed with a indolent non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, predominantly intestinal localization. Years of heavy and debilitating chemotherapy treatments, until a new histological assessment, carried out in a healthcare facility in Genoa, definitively excluded the presence of the hypothesized oncological pathology. After a first attempt to resolve the matter out of court failed, the patient decided to contact the civil court of Pisa, calling into question the Pisan university hospital company. The healthcare institution, for its part, argued that the case presented particularly complex clinical characteristics that were difficult to interpret, defending the correctness of the therapeutic procedure adopted. A position, however, denied by the technical consultancy ordered by the judge, according to which there were insufficient elements to justify that type of treatment: the hypothesis of lymphoma was in fact not supported either by the diagnostic tests or by the symptomatic picture reported by the patient.
During the appeal, the judges finally revised the degree of permanent disability upwards, bringing it from 40 to 60 percent, and recognized a specific “personalization of the damage”, linked to the profound upheaval suffered by the woman not only on a psychological level, but also in his everyday life. At the time forty-seven years old and employed as an insurance agent, the patient was forced to drastically reduce her work activity and even lost her driving license, with serious repercussions on her personal autonomy. The Court of Appeal of Florence therefore confirmed the serious damage, increasing the compensation to Montesi by the Pisan University Hospital (Aoup) to approximately 500,000 euros (in the first instance he had obtained compensation of 300 thousand euros). However, money does not restore health or wasted time and this dramatic case is not just a miscarriage of justice or bad clinical practice: it touches deeply the biological consequences of chemotherapy received for no reasona powerful treatment that can leave very long-lasting marks on the body of those who receive it.
Chemotherapy: how it works and what side effects it can cause
There chemotherapy It acts on cells that multiply rapidly and, for this reason, in addition to affecting tumor cells it can also affect cells healthy tissues. Among the most common side effects is the involvement of bone marrowwith a reduction of white blood cellswhich exposes you to a greater risk of infections, of red blood cellswith the appearance of anemiaand of plateletsincreasing the possibility of bleeding. Many patients report a intense and persistent tirednesswhich can last even after the conclusion of treatment. They are also frequent gastrointestinal disordershow nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and loss of appetitelinked to the action of drugs on the mucous membranes. Therapy can cause inflammation of the mouth, taste alterations and difficulty swallowing, making feeding more complicated. A well-known and often feared effect is the hair lossa consequence of damage to the hair follicles, as well as i skin and nail changeswhich may become more fragile or sensitive. In some cases they also appear neurological disordershow tingling in hands and feet or difficulty of memory and concentration. The intensity and duration of these effects vary from person to person and depend on the type of drug, the doses and the duration of treatment, but they still represent a significant physical and psychological impact for those undergoing chemotherapy therapy.
Why an accurate diagnosis is important
In oncology, the decision to undertake aggressive therapy such as chemotherapy is based on rigorous diagnoses and on the evidence of a neoplasm that justifies these risks. International clinical guidelines require protocols, validated clinical studies and approvals from regulatory bodies before a treatment is considered “standard”. Relying on anti-tumor treatments without a certain diagnosis is not only that exposes the person to the side effects of the therapiesbut without the clinical benefit that these therapies can offernullifying the very reason for the treatment. In Montesi’s case, the therapy only produced damage and complications, without any possibility of therapeutic benefit, precisely because there was no disease to fight.
