$12.4M Settlement for Medical Misdiagnosis That Deprived Child of Appropriate Treatment for 16 Years

Attorneys Daniel S. Weinstock and Carolyn M. Chopko secured a $12.4 million settlement for a client who, as an infant, was the victim of a multi-layered medical misdiagnosis which caused her to undergo unnecessary brain surgery and chemotherapy and deprived her of appropriate medical treatment for 16 years.

The client was born in September 2002 with a non-malignant tumor in the third ventricle of her brain, called a hypothalamic hamartoma. The hypothalamic hamartoma was promptly recognized with radiological imaging and diagnosed by a neuro-oncologist. This type of tumor causes gelastic seizures, which are seizures that mimic laughter. Because they are definitionally not malignant, hypothalamic hamartomas are not treated with chemotherapy, and they are only treated surgically if and when the seizures become frequent enough to pose a danger of brain damage. The proper treatment is anti-seizure medication.

When the client was only 2 months old, the chief neuropathologist at a major children’s hospital misinterpreted a routine cerebrospinal fluid smear as positive for malignant cells, when no malignant cells were present. Without a tumor board or even a second opinion, the hospital’s neurosurgical and oncological teams allowed this misdiagnosis to dictate the client’s care.

The client underwent a craniotomy and brain surgery that were not indicated in which a portion of the mass in her brain was removed and sent for biopsy. The biopsy was interpreted by the same neuropathologist, who compounded her previous misdiagnosis by formally overruling the earlier diagnosis of hypothalamic hamartoma and replacing it with a new misdiagnosis of ganglioglioma, which is a malignant cancer that virtually never occurs congenitally and virtually never occurs in the third ventricle. Gangliogliomas do not shed malignant cells into cerebrospinal fluid (nor do hamartomas).

As a result of the second misdiagnosis, the client was treated with 18 rounds of unnecessary chemotherapy.

Over the years, despite continuing evidence that the mass was a hamartoma, including development of characteristic gelastic seizures, the child’s medical providers did not reconsider or re-evaluate the improper diagnosis. With her seizures progressively worsening, the child was taken by her family to another children’s hospital for treatment. There, 16 years later, an additional tissue sample re-established the correct diagnosis of hypothalamic hamartoma.