Uganda Medical Association explains King Oyo cancer misdiagnosis

The medical body pinned the controversy on a number of factors including general public misunderstanding of medical dynamics as well infrastructure gaps in the sector.

Dr Evan Kamara, the vice president of UMA’s Central Branch, said the account given by Princess Ruth Komuntale at her brother’s funeral had raised legitimate questions about diagnosis in Uganda, but cautioned against interpreting every change in diagnosis as proof that doctors got it wrong.

Komuntale told mourners at St John’s Cathedral in Fort Portal on September 12, 2026, that her brother had sought medical attention in Uganda for more than a year before doctors in foreign countries diagnosed him with angiosarcoma, a rare and aggressive cancer.

She said the Ugandan doctors had previously linked his pain to strenuous exercise or ulcers and recommended physiotherapy. 

“Sadly he was not getting the correct diagnosis, he was told that his pain was likely related to strenuous exercises or ulcers and was advised to undergo physiotherapy,” she said.

By the time the cancer was detected in neighboring Kenya, she said, it had spread to several organs. Her account prompted questions about whether Uganda’s health system had failed the 34-year-old monarch. 

“In the medical context, what is a diagnosis? Is it a static conclusion that can be either correct or wrong or is it a dynamic process, an evolving process that changes with new information?” she said.

“A diagnosis is reached through a process. How we doctors make a diagnosis is a very structured process. We have algorithms we have to follow.”

She added that doctors usually work with a “differential diagnosis” rather than immediately settling on one disease.

This means a doctor may have several possible explanations for the same symptoms and progressively eliminate them as more evidence becomes available.

“We never just have one option,” he said. “After talking to a patient and doing tests, with all the evidence that comes from what they tell us and what tests are showing, we have to have about three options.”

Medical terminology, she said, can also create misunderstanding between doctors and patients. A term such as “tumour”, for instance, she said,  does not automatically mean that a patient has cancer.

Additionally, Kamara says doctors may sometimes avoid immediately presenting frightening possibilities to a patient before obtaining enough evidence to support them.

News How BBS journalist Sseruwooza lost precious hours under unnoticed heart attack King Oyo Nyimba Diagnostic equipment remains a challenge Angiosarcoma is a rare cancer that develops in cells lining blood and lymph vessels and can occur in different parts of the body. It is considered an aggressive form of soft-tissue cancer. 

On the podcast, Kamara admitted that Oyo’s case had exposed wider questions about Uganda’s access to advanced diagnostic equipment.

“One of the challenges we have in the country has to do with resources in imaging and lab services,” she said, citing recent public calls for PET scans and welcomed government plans to make the technology available in Uganda.

A positron emission tomography, or PET, scan can help doctors identify abnormal metabolic activity in the body and is used in diagnosing, staging and monitoring some cancers.

Oyo reportedly underwent a PET scan after travelling to Nairobi, where doctors identified the cancer. 

Kamara said improved access to such equipment could speed up investigations and reduce the need for some patients to travel abroad.

She further identified collaboration between specialists as another weakness that Uganda needs to address.

“We also have the element of interdisciplinary collaboration; the availability of different specialists in a hospital or in a country that are able to communicate with each other,” he said.

“Here in Uganda we don’t have that kind of network of communication, but we are building it.”

Kamara said complicated cases can require radiologists, oncologists, surgeons and other specialists to review the same evidence.

She said stronger medical networks abroad may make it easier for a doctor who identifies a suspicious finding on a scan to obtain opinions from several specialists within a short time.

“You can get a second opinion within minutes, where an entire spectrum of specialists can view the same image and provide their input,” he said.

This, she argued, can help doctors reach a more informed conclusion in complex cases.

‘Doctors are not making wrong diagnoses every day’

The revelations surrounding Oyo’s treatment triggered public concern about the quality of medical diagnosis in Uganda. 

Kamara cautioned against drawing a broader conclusion about Ugandan doctors from one case.

“Right now there seems to be fear that we doctors in Uganda are making wrong diagnoses every day. But I want to make it clear that a diagnosis is not static. There is so much room for your treatment to continue in the right direction even if during the first time the diagnosis that was made was not exactly right.”

Princess Ruth Komuntale with Queen mother Best Kemigisa Could earlier detection have saved Oyo? Kamara also cautioned against assuming that advanced equipment or an earlier diagnosis would necessarily have changed the eventual outcome.

She said some cancers progress so aggressively that patients can deteriorate despite access to sophisticated diagnostic technology and treatment.

“But even with the best PET scans and diagnostic equipment available, there are some cancers that progress very quickly, and this might have been the case for the late king,” Kamara said.

“Even with the best treatment, within a short time the cancer cells would have spread.”

She stressed that this was a possibility rather than a definitive conclusion about Oyo’s case.

“There are cancers with a very high case fatality rate while others it is much lower,” he said.

During the funeral service, Komuntale said treatment initially produced encouraging results after her brother received the angiosarcoma diagnosis.

“After he began getting the correct treatment the cancer cells started shrinking dramatically and he gained energy,” she said.

But his condition deteriorated sharply in mid-July.

“The cancer had been in his body too long and despite everything that was done his condition became increasingly difficult,” Komuntale said.

Oyo eventually travelled to the United States for further treatment after receiving care in Germany.

The government supported his treatment in Germany and the US, according to President Museveni. 

The king kept the gravity of his illness away from the public and even some Tooro officials. His family said he remained hopeful of recovering and returning home.

His condition deteriorated on August 27, 2026, while he was receiving treatment in the United States. Doctors placed him on life support but were unable to save him. He died aged 34. 

His body returned to Uganda on September 4 before he was buried at the Karambi Royal Tombs on September 12 following a funeral service at St John’s Cathedral.