Niamh Shackleton
A man received chemotherapy for almost a decade went on to learn that his cancer was misdiagnosed.
Anthony Olson was told that he had Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) in 2011 by Dr. Thomas C. Weiner, who is a former oncologist at St. Peter’s Health - the only adult acute care facility in Helena, Montana.
The National Cancer Institute describes MDS as 'a group of cancers in which immature blood cells in the bone marrow do not mature or become healthy blood cells'.
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Olson was 33 at the time he received the devastating diagnosis, and was told by Weiner that he'd be 'dead before the end of the year' if he didn't start treatment.
"That diagnosis changed the direction of my life," Olson, now 47, told ProPublica.
Weiner ordered two bone marrow biopsies ahead of Olson diagnosis, only one of which showed signs of MDS.
The second, taken ten months after the first, came back clear.
Despite the second biopsy showing no indication that MDS was still present, Olson continued to undergo treatment and did so for nine years.
Weiner reportedly told him to ignore the second biopsy's results and said that it was a sign that was the treatment was working, therefore he should continue it.
When ProPublic asked Weiner about the negative results, he said: "That doesn’t say you didn’t have the disease. It just means that the treatment worked, and it knocked it away. It doesn’t mean you didn’t have it at the beginning."
But in the years that followed, the hospital retested the original sample and it was found that Olson never had MDS in the first place.
It wasn't until Dr. Robert LaClair, a kidney specialist who was managing Olson’s dialysis, found that Olson had an 'iron overload' in 2016 that the man's mistreatment started came to light.
As well as having an 'iron overload', LaClair found that Olson's chemo was making his anaemia worse (a condition he had before his MDS diagnosis).
By 2019, LaClair seemed quite confident that his patient had been wrongly diagnosed by Weiner and urged Olson to get a second opinion. A year later, he took his concerns to the hospital’s peer review committee and, once LaClair became head of the committee, he had Weiner fired.
St Peter's Health went on to accuse Weiner of 'harm that was caused to patients by receiving treatments, including chemotherapy, that were not clinically indicated or necessary' regarding Olson's case and his treatment of other patients in his care.
Olson went on to stop his cancer treatment in 2021 and sued St Peter's a year later. The hospital settled and paid an undisclosed amount.
Weiner has denied all the allegations and has since sued the hospital for wrongful termination and defamation.
A Montana judge dismissed the suit, ProPublica reports, but Weiner went on to file an appeal.
As of December 20, the appeal was pending with the state Supreme Court.
In a statement issued to UNILAD, St Peter's Health said on the situation regarding Weiner: "Our patients trust us with their health and well-being, and it’s a privilege and responsibility we take very seriously.
"St. Peter’s is focused on moving forward, and we remain fully committed to providing the great care and experience our community deserves."