Apr 20, 2025 06:22 PM IST
A 76-year-old woman, misdiagnosed with food intolerance, died three days after a bowel cancer diagnosis.
A 76-year-old UK woman who was said to rarely fall ill died three days after she was diagnosed with bowel cancer after doctors originally mistook her symptoms for a food intolerance, the Daily Mail said.
The healthy mother died within eight months of a bowel cancer diagnosis after she suddenly fell ill in 2023. Maria Paszkiewicz started experiencing a change in her bowel habits and complained that she needed to use the toilet more frequently than usual.
However, her doctor said her symptoms were caused by a reaction to food that she ate and was unable to digest properly. Her daughter said no doctor suggested that it could be something more serious and the family believed it was just digestion issues.
A cancer diagnosis
However, when her conditon worsened Paszkiewicz pushed for blood tests and doctors discovered cancer in her bowel, which had spread to her liver. While she was quickly put on chemotherapy, after the course of treatment ended, the disease began to grow back.
She was told she had just three to six months to live but her family was left devastated when she died just three days later.
“After that initial prognosis we spent the next few days calculating how long three months was and milestones coming up and what can we do as a family. But we didn’t get to do any of that. It was a huge shock to the system,” her daughter said.
Bowel cancer linked to food
Bowel cancer survival rates remain low, with only half of patients expected to live a decade post-diagnosis. Experts are shocked by a 36% rise in cases among under-50s between 2007 and 2017, potentially linked to ultra-processed foods, pollution, and plastic exposure.
Symptoms include bowel habit changes, blood in stool, abdominal pain, bloating, weight loss, and fatigue.
