There are a wide range of underlying reasons why cancer may be misdiagnosed, undiagnosed, or delayed in diagnosis, these include:
- Busy A&E departments may not have sufficient senior staff or radiographers to interpret scans, x-rays or other diagnostic images
- Scans may not be correctly interpreted
- Not conducting a full medical examination of the patient
- Not taking a detailed medical history
- Not referring to existing medical notes
- Failure to ask appropriate questions which may lead to a diagnosis
- Failure to ask for the opinion of another doctor (e.g. if the doctor lacks experience)
- Failure to spot early warning signs of cancer
- Not recommending cancer screening when appropriate
- Failure to refer to appropriate specialists
- Communication failures between doctors, laboratories and hospitals
