Malaga's false colon cancer positives were due to contamination with cleaning liquid

Health

The regional government has ensured a fast response and is already repeating the procedure for the 400 people the error concerns

José Antonio Sau

The Andalusian regional health ministry has already determined the cause that led to around 400 false colon cancer positives at the laboratory of Malaga's El Clínico hospital. According to official sources, the cause was contamination of the analyser system with cleaning fluid.

"The source was the analyser that performs the determination of occult blood in faeces. Following a maintenance procedure, the system became contaminated with cleaning fluid used by the equipment itself," the regional government (Junta) said.

Lab workers detected a potential error in the analyser's internal fluid system. Some faecal occult blood samples showed artificially elevated values, leading the team to classify samples as false positives.

No concealed potential cases

The regional government stressed that the incident had not produced any false negatives or missed diagnoses, "as the problem artificially increased the number of positive results, it did not than conceal potential cases".

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