A woman who said she was told by a GP she may be experiencing “medical anxiety” after finding a lump in her breast was later diagnosed with cancer.
Beth Jenkins, 42, visited a locum GP at her practice with concerns that a lump on her right breast had grown significantly and said she was told she was “too young to have breast cancer” and it may be linked to postnatal depression instead.
However, it was lobular breast cancer, external, with a 5cm (2in) tumour and the disease had spread to three lymph nodes.
Practice 1 Keir Hardie Health Park said it could not discuss individual cases but encouraged patients to “make a second appointment” if they had concerns about their health or care.
The mum-of-two, from Merthyr Tydfil, first noticed a “small pea-sized” lump in her breast in 2018, but, after an ultrasound, she was told it was likely glandular tissue and no biopsy was carried out.
A few years later she had given birth to her daughter Robyn and, while changing her nappy, Robyn accidentally kicked the right side of her chest.
It was then Jenkins noticed the lump had become “massive” so she visited her GP practice in October 2024.
She said, being 40 at the time, she was told she was “too young” to have breast cancer and the lump may be linked to an infection or “medical anxiety” as she had postnatal depression, and was prescribed antibiotics.
She said: “I haven’t got medical anxiety, otherwise I’d be up the hospital and doctors’ every week.”
