FOR nearly ten years Trevor Smithson was told by doctors that he was dangerously obese and had only himself to blame for his constant pain, chronic backache and circulation problems.

“I think everyone just took one look at me and thought I drank 15 pints a day,” said Mr Smithson, a 53-year-old aeronautical engineer.

Every few months he would visit the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading, and every time he was told he was fat, and sent away to lose weight.

It was not until he finally went for a consultation at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London that doctors realised the truth: Mr Smith had developed a 25kg (55lb) malignant tumour over a decade.

By the time it was removed last year, its size had displaced his other internal organs. He lost a kidney and a section of his colon in the operation, needing breathing support as his lungs recovered from being crushed by the tumour.

Now Mr Smithson, who has been left partially disabled by the ordeal, has referred his complaint to the Healthcare Commission. “(It is) incomprehensible that the collective wisdom and equipment of Royal Berkshire Hospital could somehow manage not to find a 25kg malignant tumour over a period approximating to a decade,” he said.

Mr Smithson, 53, says that he first complained about a grossly disorted abdomen and accompanying pain in 1994. He was referred to the hospital by his GP, but when he was seen there he was told he was fat.

When he finally reached the Royal Marsden, he says, the first reaction of Meirion Thomas, his surgeon, was: “So you’ve not been to see your doctor for years and years, have you?” He had to explain that he had been seeing doctors at regular intervals, with no satisfaction.

Mr Thomas removed what are described in Mr Smithson’s discharge notes as “a truly immense intra-abdominal liposarcoma”. These are slow-growing malignant tumours that develop in fat tissue, and are often found in the abdominal cavity.

They are soft and can be difficult to diagnose, but Mr Smithson says that he had a range of symptoms that ought to have alerted doctors, including backache, circulation problems in his scrotum and a colon so displaced that it could be felt through the abdominal wall. He also had excessive body weight while not having any symptoms of obesity anywhere else in his body. “I was constantly shopping for ever-increasing sizes of clothes,” he said. “I’m a tall man and when I was also that heavy I wore out my shoes very quickly.

“I went through a difficult time career-wise. I was an aeronautical engineer but I couldn’t get a job. Once they had decided I was just obese they didn’t take any further action.”

Yesterday the hospital said that while they could not discuss individual cases, this particular type of tumour could be difficult to diagnose, and that it might take years to discover.

“If one looked for one thing and didn’t have enough information to look for anything else, one might not do tests,” a spokeswoman said, making clear that she was talking in general terms and not specifically about Mr Smithson.

“We take complaints very seriously and investigate them thoroughly.”

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