Seven people have been diagnosed with colorectal cancer after an investigation into their surgeon sparked a fresh assessment of almost 2000 patients.
Earlier this year, Safer Care Victoria issued a colonoscopy recall for patients who had the procedure performed or supervised by Dr Liu-Ming Schmidt between 2018 and 2022 at Albury Wodonga Health, Albury Wodonga Private Hospital and Insight Private Hospital.
A review found public and private patients may have undergone incomplete colonoscopy procedures, which could have potentially impacted the accuracy of their diagnosis.
More than 1000 had their colonoscopy repeated while there were 1750 clinical reviews and more than 1400 specialist consultations.
A final report into the recall of 1934 patients showed seven had developed cancer.
"Based on available information it is not possible to correlate these outcomes with a potentially incomplete original colonoscopy," the report said.
There were 74 dead patients who had since died, but their cause of death data and patient files showed none were found to have died of causes related to their original colonoscopy, the report said.
A further 548 others have been given preventative treatment.
About 900,000 colonoscopes are performed in Australia every year to screen or diagnose people at risk of developing colorectal cancers and to check on those in recovery.
Safer Care Victoria Chief Executive Officer Mike Roberts on Friday acknowledged it had been a difficult process for affecyed patients.
"It’s now incumbent on us to work through the lessons learned to ensure it leaves a lasting change on the culture of safety at Victoria’s health services," Professor Roberts said.
Shine Lawyers medical law practice leader Daniel Opare urged the seven cancer patients to seek independent legal advice as they could be entitled to compensation.
"Safer Care Victoria states it was not possible to determine whether cancer could have been detected in each of the seven patients during their initial colonoscopy," Mr Opare said on Monday.
"However, we've had clients for whom that was thought to be the case, but on further investigation we determined the cancer was capable of diagnosis earlier."
Dr Liu-Ming Schmidt was temporarily banned from practising medicine in Australia in January.
