Hong Kong public hospitals are reviewing blood check outcomes of greater than 400 sufferers after batches of a reagent had been discovered to have high quality points that might produce false positives for prostate most cancers.
The Hospital Authority stated on Tuesday that it was following up with the provider of a testing product after being notified by the agency final week about complaints elsewhere associated to high quality points.
The product, provided by Abbott Laboratories, is a reagent package that detects the extent of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in blood. An elevated degree could also be an indication of prostate most cancers.
The product’s high quality points may “probably result in a misdiagnosis of prostate most cancers, inflicting medical doctors to erroneously contemplate pointless therapies”, the authority stated.
Two batches of the affected merchandise had been despatched to Caritas Medical Centre in Sham Shui Po and Tuen Mun Hospital.
Whereas Tuen Mun Hospital had not began to make use of the product, Caritas Medical Centre had already examined blood samples of 406 sufferers with the PSA package since April 28.
It has reviewed the check outcomes and can contact about 70 sufferers this week, and rearrange blood checks based mostly on their medical wants.