Islington News: Cancer | Liver Failure

Publications by New Journal Enterprises

Home

Archive

Competition

Islington Tribune - by CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS
Published: 14 November 2008

Cancer victim had beaten liver failure a year earlier

A COMPUTER consultant died from ovarian cancer a year after a “remarkable” recovery from a completely unconnected illness, an inquest heard last week.
Kathleen O’Donnell, from Digby Crescent, off Green Lanes, Finsbury Park, died at University College Hospital in Bloomsbury in August – just five days from her 45th birthday – from liver failure brought on by ovarian cancer.
A year earlier she had beaten a life-threatening form of liver failure with just a 20 in 100 survival rate.
At a St Pancras inquest last week Dr Andrew Reid described her untimely death as “extremely unlucky” and said: “The evidence is her [liver failure] relapse was caused by the fact that, unfortunately and extremely unluckily for her, she had developed ovarian carcinoma.”
He added: “She made a remarkable recovery in 2007 – only 20 in 100 survive the liver problem she had – only to die from cancer in 2008.”
The inquest was told that a scan of her ovaries, which revealed she had cancer, was carried out in May but lost until July. By the time her cancer was discovered – when the scans were handed to the right team on the right ward – her cancer had progressed from stage three to stage four.
Doctors insisted that, even if they had known earlier, she would have been unlikely to survive. Dr Reid said the failure of her blood to clot during an operation could have happened “whether at stage three or stage four”.
Ruling that she died of natural causes, he added: “The risk of her liver not being able to cope was ever present.”
Earlier, Ms O’Donnell’s family had grilled doctors, asking: “She had dramatic weight loss between April and May. Why didn’t you test for cancer?”
Dr Rajiv Jalan, a hepatology specialist, said two scans did not expose her cancer. He added: “We were looking very hard... [But] because of the absence of the CT scan evidence [the missing test which revealed Ms O’Donnell had cancer] we were considering this as a progressive liver disease. This waxing and waning in the context of liver disease is not unusual.”

Comment on this article.
(You must supply your full name and email address for your comment to be published)

Name:

Email:

Comment: