A cancer patient died during an operation which his family was told had a 90 per cent chance of success, an inquest heard yesterday before a jury returned a verdict of death by misadventure.
Ho Hok-shing, 68, who suffered a rare form of cancer in his adrenal glands, died of blood loss during surgery to remove a tumour at Prince of Wales Hospital on January 30.
The five-member jury urged doctors to inform patients' families of an operation's success rate by referring to statistics, if any were available. If it was a high-risk operation, doctors should mention the death rate, the jury recommended.
The recommendation came after the dead man's son, Ho Man-yee, told the Coroner's Court that he had felt pressured by doctors to sign a consent form for the operation on January 29.
Mr Ho also asked the doctors in court why his father had died on the operating table when the operation's success rate was allegedly 90 per cent.
However, Professor Sydney Chung Sheung-chee, the doctor in charge of the operation, said there were risks in any operation regardless of its success rate.
