In Bremen, an external audit is to clarify how a series of errors occurred in the assessment of breast cancer findings. This was reaffirmed on Tuesday by Bremen’s Health Minister Claudia Bernhard (Die Linke) in the state parliament. She also said how difficult it is to find someone for this task. When asked by , her spokesperson could not say exactly what qualifications were being sought.
In the meantime, the opposition, without an audit and without knowledge of the exact circumstances, states that structural problems are the underlying cause, as CDU and FDP parliamentary deputies stated in the city parliament session. Both factions had already submitted detailed questions to the Senate six days after the erroneous series became known on December 2.
The public prosecutor’s office is also investigating—against unknown persons—for suspicion of negligent bodily harm, as a spokeswoman said. This is because patients, due to the faulty findings, may have received therapies that were not indicated, but which can be associated with serious side effects as well as long-term damage.
Initially, public attention focused on a senior physician who, according to the municipal hospital association Geno, was allegedly solely responsible for 34 faulty findings at Klinikum Bremen-Mitte. Probe samples of findings from other doctors were examined, and nothing was found to be amiss, a Geno spokesperson told . And: “We cannot explain this.” The physician is an experienced pathologist, who is no longer working for the Bremen clinic.
Suspension also in Göttingen
The University Clinic Göttingen, where she also works part-time, has suspended her until Christmas—“to work through the background transparently and comprehensively,” as a clinic spokesperson told . One can assume that this is also to protect the physician, who is now being blamed with such grave guilt.
The Göttingen clinic spokesperson also writes that all cases processed by the physician from October 2024 to November 2025 have been carefully reviewed, with no further irregularities identified. She is there, unlike in Bremen, not tasked with evaluating breast cancer findings. Only with these did she apparently repeatedly make the same mistake. In Bremen, a review of her other cancer findings by the hospital association showed no further discrepancies.
It is currently not explainable why the faulty findings only appeared from February 2025. Geno’s review of all 500 breast cancer findings from the start of her tenure in October 2024 to the end in November 2025 showed this. What changed in February, whether there were technical innovations or whether the doctor from then on evaluated samples not in Bremen but in Göttingen and thus before a different monitor: Geno does not say this, citing ongoing criminal investigations.
The whole story revolves around the detection of a particular type of fast-growing breast cancer, which occurs in about 15 to 20 percent of patients. This can be very effectively treated for about 25 years with a then-new medication. This therapy has significantly contributed to lowering breast cancer mortality. It is an antibody therapy combined with chemotherapy.
“When the studies back then showed how well the drug works, there were standing ovations,” says Annette Lebeau. She is a pathologist with her own practice in Lübeck, vice president of the Professional Association of German Pathologists and Pathologists and a professor at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf. As a recognized expert in evaluating breast cancer findings, she explains to by phone the diagnosis of this particular type of cancer.
A borderline result
Today, it is a routine procedure with established quality assurance measures. If these are followed, the diagnostics are not more error-prone than others, says Annette Lebeau. Using marked antibodies, the tissue is examined microscopically to determine whether the protein HER2 is highly amplified on the cancer cells. It influences the growth rate. In roughly 15 to 30 percent of all cases, this test yields a borderline result, the so-called “Score 2+,” she says. This means that a second method must be employed to distinguish between HER2-positive and HER2-negative.
In the 34 cases at Klinikum Bremen-Mitte, the senior physician did not realize that she was facing this group with Score 2+. Instead, the clinic’s spokesperson says, she had the immunohistochemistry of the tissue samples with “Score 3+” interpreted as strongly stained and thus clearly positive. Other samples she correctly interpreted as 2+.
The patients subsequently received an antibody therapy that did not benefit everyone medically. Some also did not need chemotherapy, the Geno spokesperson told . How many were treated incorrectly and how many correctly in terms of therapeutic success, she could not say. Nor how many only received chemotherapy.
It remains unclear how it happened that the doctor interpreted so many findings incorrectly. “We have established high quality standards in Germany to prevent such and other errors,” says the Lübeck pathologist Annette Lebeau. The situation in Bremen thus represents an exception. “Which safeguards here failed must be critically examined and assessed in detail.”
It will also be examined whether there is sufficient professional expertise and capacity in pathology at Klinikum Mitte for the diagnosis of various cancers. Currently, besides the chief physician, only two specialists work there. They must now, after the departure of the senior physician, not only take over her work. As a trust-building measure, they are to evaluate all breast cancer findings using the four-eyes principle. This is not a standard procedure and is not reimbursed by health insurers.
