Grail, a California-based company, said due to an error, a letter was mistakenly sent to some people who purchased their early cancer detection test called Galleri.
A healthcare company’s early cancer detection test mistakenly informed nearly 400 people that it detected cancer, including some people who had not even taken the test yet, according to reports.
Grail, a California-based company, said in a statement emailed to The New York Times that some people who purchased their early cancer detection test, Galleri, were mistakenly sent a letter saying that a cancer signal was detected. But the letters were sent in error, the company said.
Grail blamed vendor PWN Health for the mix-up, CBS News reported.
PWN Health said in a statement that the letters were sent due to "a misconfiguration of our patient engagement platform used to send templated communications to individuals," but also stated that they made changes to ensure this problem does not present itself again, according to CBS News.
PWN Health told the Times it addressed the "underlying problem within an hour of becoming aware of it." The company said it worked with Grail to contact "impacted individuals," who were reached out to within 36 hours.
A Grail spokeswoman told CBS News that over half of the incorrect letters were sent to customers that hadn’t even taken the blood test yet.
The letters containing life-altering news were sent out from May 10 to May 18, ABC 7 News reported. No patient information was disclosed or breached during the glitch. No patient harm has been reported as a result of the error, Grail told ABC.
