Claymon Laboratories, the company accused of inaccurately reporting cervical smear test results for women in Sligo General Hospital, is considering legal action against the North Western Health Board (NWHB) for damage to its reputation.
The company claimed it was vindicated by a new study of the 2,115 smears from women in the north-west and that the board was wrong to blame it for inaccurate test results in April.
It said the study contradicted the NWHB's claim that 68 women were told their cervical cancer tests were negative when they were positive.
It said the NWHB formed the wrong conclusion from information received from a Glasgow laboratory that rechecked the slides tested by Claymon personnel.
The new study was carried out by Dr Jane Johnson, a consultant cytopathologist and president of the British Society for Clinical Cytology.
She found that of these 68 so-called "false positives", 55 were in fact negative and only three of the remaining 13 could be regarded as "high-risk". The study said the Glasgow laboratory "misdiagnosed the vast majority of the 68 cases".
Claymon said yesterday it wanted an urgent meeting with the Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, to discuss the findings of the study.
A spokesman said the company would be considering several courses of action following the receipt of the study and the meeting with Mr Cowen.
The company would take legal action, on the basis that being blamed for the inaccurate tests had damaged its reputation and it had suffered commercial loss. The NWHB previously said it would consider legal action against Claymon.
A British company, Healthcare Risk Resources International (HRRI), is investigating the testing done by Claymon on behalf of the NWHB.
A statement from the NWHB issued to The Irish Times said the review by Dr Johnson was not part of HRRI's investigation.
It said it did not accept the substance of Claymon's media statement, but would not be seeking to prejudice the outcome of the investigation being carried out by HRRI.
"However, we assure the public, and Claymon in particular, we will make a comprehensive response once the investigations finding are known," it added.
The HRRI study is expected within weeks and will be presented to Mr Cowen.
Mr Eamon Madden, managing director of Claymon Laboratories, said: "Dr Johnson's study shows definitively that the review of our results by Glasgow was highly questionable in the first instance and erroneous when further details emerged".
The health board was initially concerned about the accuracy of the tests done by Claymon because of the abnormally low number of positive results in the batch.
However, the study claimed this was because the batch from Sligo was not a random sample of the population, as urgent cases and those with a previous history were removed. "It would be natural, therefore, for the number of positive results to be lower," the spokesman said.