Treatment for a cancer that Ontario woman never had ‘led to profound brain damage’

Tom Blackwell Mar 4, 2012 10:41 PM ET | Last Updated: Mar 5, 2012 8:34 AM ET

The prognosis for Jessie Kay was so grim after a mysterious seizure, her children just hoped doctors could buy the 66-year-old a little extra time.

Cancer had taken root in Ms. Kays lungs, then spread to several locations in her brain, a radiologist at Torontos Princess Margaret Hospital concluded after analyzing an MRI scan.

Oncologists at the prestigious cancer centre went to work, applying treatment called whole-brain radiation to the grandmother from Barrie, Ont.

There was just one problem: When another specialist looked at an image of her brain soon after the treatment, he realized she actually had infectious abscesses, not cancerous tumours.

The radiation had been for naught. It soon became apparent the woman had suffered profound brain damage, leaving her with the intelligence of a child, unable to care for herself.

Last week, a judge gave the green light for her family to move ahead with a $6-million lawsuit against Princess Margaret and the doctors who treated her there in mid-2008.

The unsettling allegations, yet to be proved in court, underline again the potentially dire consequences of errors by diagnostic specialists, driven home in a series of recent controversies across the country.

Tyler Anderson/National Post

Leigh Recker's mother Jessie Kay is suing Princess Margaret Hospital for malpractice after she was misdiagnosed with cancer and given radiation therapy that caused major brain damage.

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Treatment for a cancer that Ontario woman never had ‘led to profound brain damage’