Woman gets part of rectum removed after false cancer diagnosis

A 68-year-old American woman has filed a lawsuit after allegedly being falsely diagnosed cancer and having part of her rectum removed by a hospital.

According to the New York Daily news, the woman simply known as ‘Jane Doe’ thought she was dying for many months after being falsely diagnosed her with cancer.

The misdiagnosis was reportedly caused by the mislabelling of her tissue sample from a routine colonoscopy.

Her samples are thought to have been mixed up with those belonging to a man suffering from rectal cancer.

"I literally had my daughter drive down from Minnesota for Christmas because we all thought this was probably the last Christmas we would be together," she was quoted saying.

Pre-operative biopsies performed prior to the surgery in hopes of pin-pointing the cancer’s exact location came back negative, but doctors elected to go through with the operation, medicaldaily.com reports.

It was only after the doctors evaluated the tissue removed during surgery that they realised she had been cancer-free all along.

The woman now wants to know who was responsible for the mix-up and has filed a lawsuit asking a judge to order Florida Hospital to surrender records related to the alleged mislabelling.

“We are aware of the case, but we don't comment on pending litigation,” Florida Hospital spokeswoman Samantha Kearns Olenick said.