The former CEO of an embattled Newfoundland health authority altered information bound for the health minister, a senior manager told an inquiry into breast cancer testing problems on Monday.

Heather Predham, the assistant director of quality and risk management at Eastern Health, told the Commission of Inquiry on Hormone Receptor Testing in St. John's that former chief executive officer George Tilley changed the meaning of significant information she had prepared for the health minister, then John Ottenheimer, about hundreds of botched cancer tests.

In the fall of 2005, Ottenheimer sent Eastern Health a list of questions about breast cancer mistakes.

It was Predham's job to answer those questions.

Predham testified that she wrote in her assessment that the pathology lab lacked quality control standards and proper staff training.

However, under questioning from inquiry lawyer Sandra Chaytor, Predham said that before her evaluation could make it to the provincial government, Tilley changed the wording to paint a different picture.

In one case, Tilley's changes suggested that mistakes had been detected because of the good work being done in the lab.

"Did this assertion by Mr. Tilley cause you any concern?" Chaytor said.

"It certainly wasn't the way I would've worded it," Predham said. "And it's certainly not the way I wrote it in the first place."

"Yes, it isn't," Chaytor said. "Were you concerned about the accuracy of this statement going to the government?"

"Was I concerned at that time? In all honesty, no. I wasn't concerned at that time because this was the CEO making that decision that's going forward."

Predham said she would have preferred that her own wording be kept, but admitted she was too busy at the time to put much thought into the changes Tilley made.

The public inquiry, which began hearing testimony since March, is investigating how hundreds of breast cancer patients received faulty hormone receptor test results, a test that can help determine the type of treatment a patient already diagnosed with cancer will receive.

Justice Margaret Cameron, head of the inquiry, hopes to wrap up testimony by the end of October.