The Canadian Association of Pathologists has announced new guidelines for Canada's laboratory services. The aim is to prevent a future debacle such as the case of 400 breast cancer patients in Newfoundland who were given inaccurate test results between 1997 and 2005.

Myrtle Lewis was told she had breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy, along with painful chemotherapy. But after seven years, a doctor told her she had been misdiagnosed because of a faulty test result.

"It was a living hell, that's what it was like," Lewis told CTV News. "I was sick all the time going through the chemo."

Dr. Jagdish Butany, president of the CAP, announced a five-point plan for improving lab services across the country at a news conference on Wednesday in Ottawa.

The plan calls for:

• Mandatory certification for every prognostic and predictive test given by a medical laboratory.
• Test results from one lab to be verified by another, independent laboratory.
• A national checklist for laboratories to follow that will standardize operating procedures and equipment maintenance, test validation and staff training and evaluation.
• Creation of a national body, independent of the government, to accredit all medical laboratories in Canada.
• Immediate and ongoing action from federal, provincial and territorial governments to address manpower and resource shortages in medical labs.

"Canada's medical laboratory system is the foundation upon which good patient care, diagnosis and treatment rests," Butany said. "Canada's pathologists and laboratory technologists work hard to deliver critical, time-sensitive information and this new action plan will give them the support they need."

Political leaders now need to step forward and support the implementation of the plan, Butany said.

The new guidelines were announced at the close of the CAP annual meeting in Ottawa.

If implemented, the recommendations should boost Canadians' confidence in the work of pathologists at a time when some provinces are investigating botched lab tests.

Officials in Newfoundland recently held public hearings to investigate how more than 400 breast cancer test results that proved to be inaccurate could have been given to patients over an eight-year period. Some of the patients were not told for years that their tests were inaccurate, which may have affected the nature of their treatment.

New Brunswick and Manitoba are also investigating whether laboratory tests there have contained inaccuracies.