N.B. doc at centre of cancer reviews works on accurate software test

SAINT JOHN, N.B. - A pathologist who has prompted a government review of 15,000 cancer cases for fear they may have not been properly diagnosed has developed screening software for cervical cancer that he claims produces more accurate results.
Amid allegations that Dr. Rajgopal Menon was frequently absent from his job at the Miramichi, N.B., hospital while tending to a private venture, the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal has learned he has secured a deal with officials in Venezuela for a trial of his invention.
In 2006, when Menon was in the South American country, he said his Cytopath system, 18 years in the making, was an innovative way of reviewing Pap tests.
''The most important thing to stress is the accuracy,'' he told a newspaper at the time. ''Human error is one of the old system's problems, and when cytologists get tired under a heavy workload, a margin of error comes into play.''
Cytologists are medical laboratory technologists. Normally, a cytologist would be the first to examine a Pap test and send it to a pathologist for diagnosis if it's abnormal.
With Cytopath, an automated microscope and camera check samples for abnormalities instead, producing accurate and rapid results, said Menon, who gave a presentation on his system to the Universidad Central de Venezuela's school of medicine in July 2006.
''The machine can do four cytologists' work, so that makes a big difference and it won't get tired,'' he said.
The Miramichi Regional Health Authority alleges Menon was frequently absent from the Miramichi Regional Hospital's pathology lab ''in relation to a private enterprise,'' according to documents filed with the Court of Queen's Bench trial division in Miramichi.
''A considerable quantity'' of pathology slides were also missing from the hospital while Menon was chief of the department, the documents, filed in response to a lawsuit launched by Menon, claim.
The statements contained in the documents have not been proven in a court of law.
Menon declined comment Monday. The 73-year-old pathologist is at the centre of an unfolding provincial health scandal over potential misdiagnoses and shoddy work.
The Health Department is expected to hire a team of pathologists from outside the province to help pour over the 15,000 cases handled by Menon in Miramichi between 1995 and last year.
Within days, Health Minister Mike Murphy will also name a quasi-retired judge to lead a public inquiry into the problem.
Murphy has also asked the RCMP to conduct a review, to determine if criminal negligence charges should be laid.
Menon is president of Medidelta Inc., a research and development company based in Fredericton.
According to the company website, Cytopath is ''the first automated cervical smear screening software.''
Menon and Venezuela's faculty of medicine entered a memorandum of intent for mutual collaboration, according to Sarmiento Nunez Consulting, a division of a law firm in Caracas. Part of that agreement was that the university would loan 500 cytology slides to Menon.
Menon worked as a pathologist at the Miramichi hospital until Feb. 6, 2007, when he was suspended by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New Brunswick, based on a complaint by the regional health authority that he put patients at risk by missing cases of cancer.