A Hamilton father is demanding answers from two hospitals after he was wrongly diagnosed with terminal cancer and recommended for chemotherapy.

Larry Reece, 46, wants to know why the hospitals initially continued to stand by the misdiagnosis even after he underwent additional tests in the United States that he says conclusively proved he did not have cancer.

For months, doctors in Canada and the U.S. argued over Reece’s diagnosis of stage-four lung cancer.

On Oct. 3, his death sentence was finally lifted. He was told by Hamilton Health Sciences he was actually suffering from sarcoidosis, a rare but treatable lung disease that can look like cancer.

It’s not clear how Reece was given the wrong diagnosis.

“This is a terrible thing and what’s in our heads now is whether they got the samples mixed up. Is there somebody out there that has cancer but doesn’t know it yet?” he wondered.

Reece says he will never forgive his doctors for the misdiagnosis, which forced him to tell his two teenage daughters he was dying.

Last month, he formally complained to St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton’s Firestone Clinic, where he was diagnosed, and Hamilton Health Sciences’ Juravinski Cancer Centre, where he was referred.

Both health centres told the Star they acknowledged “the gravity” of Reece’s case and are investigating what happened.

St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton chief of staff Dr. Hugh Fuller said a comprehensive review had been launched into Reece’s case.

Hamilton Health Sciences is also investigating, and its chief medical executive, Dr. Richard McLean, said: “This is a complex case and we appreciate the gravity of the situation.” Both organizations said they would discuss the findings of the reviews with Reece.

Medical records obtained by the Star show Reece was a non-smoking, previously healthy man who developed a cough in early 2013. Unable to shake the cough a year later, he underwent a CT scan at the Firestone clinic and was told “with 99 per cent certainty” he had sarcoidosis.

He underwent a lung biopsy in May and the results painted a much more sinister picture: stage-four lung cancer that had spread.

Reece was told by his doctor that most patients die within 12 months. He was then referred to an oncologist at the Juravinski Hospital, who suggested he start chemotherapy as soon as possible.

“I was completely shocked and did not feel like I was dying,” Reece said. He refused chemotherapy and went to his company, Thermo Fisher Scientific, for help.

For the past 25 years, Reece has worked as a distribution data analyst for the international biotech organization, which specializes in healthcare and scientific research. Thermo Fisher Scientific has a program that supports employees battling cancer and provides funding for further testing.

The company’s former chief medical officer, U.S.-based genetic expert Dr. Paul Billings, studied Reece’s medical records and took up his case.

Billings, who is now the chief medical officer at the University of California, Berkeley, disagreed with Reece’s cancer diagnosis and said he had many sleepless nights worrying about what would happen. He feared chemotherapy could weaken Reece’s immune system, making it more likely to be ravaged by sarcoidosis, Billings told the Star on Tuesday, over the phone from Boston.

He sent Reece and his first tissue sample to Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y., for further tests. Doctors told Reece the sample tested positive for cancer, but his biopsy results showed he did not have cancer.

His blood sample was also sent to Guardant Health in California for a breakthrough test that can analyze a patient’s cancer genomics and came back negative.

The results of both tests were sent to Reece’s Hamilton-based doctors, Billings said.

Reece said doctors at Juravinski Hospital told him on Aug. 13 that he still had cancer.

By this stage it was almost six months since Reece had been diagnosed, yet he had not lost weight or suffered from symptoms typical of advanced cancer, Billings said he told Hamilton doctors.

“Finally, the hospital re-biopsied him and found nothing,” he said.

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A report of Reece’s September 16 second biopsy at St. Joseph’s Hospital was obtained by the Star and shows his samples tested negative for malignant cells.

When doctors at Juravinski told Reece the results, he said they added that he could be “the one in a million where an error has occurred.” Reece was told he had sarcoidosis — a disease that has an average mortality rate of one to five per cent, compared with the 99 per cent mortality rate for stage four lung cancer.

Billings believes there are only three explanations for the misdiagnosis:

1. Reece had cancer and it mysteriously disappeared without treatment, which he said was highly unlikely.

2. The pathologists misread his tissue sample.

3. His sample was mixed up with another patient’s.

“Mistakes happen in the lab. It’s very rare, but they do happen,” Billings said.

This was a “very unusual case” that highlights a serious need for hospitals to safeguard against lab errors.

Reece said when

he was told he was dying from cancer, all the milestones he was going to miss in his family’s life started to flash through his head. “I was thinking that I wasn’t going to be able to watch my daughters graduate or get married or have kids,” he said.

It took Reece and his wife, Patricia, more than two weeks to tell their children he had lung cancer.

His youngest daughter, aged 16, started screaming and ran out of the room.

“That scream is still ripping through my head now. You should never have to tell your kids that. It was the worst thing I have ever done,” he said.

TIMELINE

January 2013 – January 2104: Persistent coughing

April: Chest x-ray and CT scan show Reece likely has sarcoidosis

May 22: Biopsy of his lungs conducted at Firestone Clinic

June 5: Biopsy results show stage-four lung cancer. Reece referred to Juravinski Cancer Centre

June 7: Reece asks his company, Thermo Fisher Scientific, for help

June 21: Reece tells his children he has lung cancer

July 2 to July 16: His company funds a blood test and second biopsy in the U.S., and both results come back negative for cancer