Failure to diagnose common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) can be medical malpractice

Often doctors fail to diagnose common variable immune deficiency (CVID). It takes an average of 6 years for patients to receive a correct CVID diagnosis because it is a rare form of immune deficiency that mimics other diseases and causes a variety of disparate ailments. In a recent article in the Washington Post, Sandra G. Boodman describes the case of a woman who was submitted to numerous tests before being properly diagnosed with CVID. The woman’s oldest brother who is also a physician was diagnosed earlier with the same disorder and she kept telling the doctors and nurses about it but no one listened to her. Finally she was able to arrange a phone call between her brother and her hematologist. The hematologist listened to the brother because he was a doctor and then things started to move in the right direction. She started to receive infusions, the only way to treat CVID and the platelet count started to increase. After a few months she was in remission. She then saw two specialists who confirmed she had CVID a condition that so far has no cure and requires painful monthly infusions.