A Tragic Frequent Mistake - Diagnosing A Breast Lump As A Cyst When It Is Actually Cancer

Women believe that their doctors will know the difference between a serious health problem and something that fails to present any risk to their health. A particular issue to which this apples is with breast cancer. Women count on doctors to run all appropriate tests to discover any cancer that may be present as early as feasible. The presence of a lump in a breast raises concern immediately. And here is where the doctor can do the right thing or the wrong thing. Typically, physicians concur that the right thing is to perform tests to establish if that lump is cancerous. The reason most doctors acknowledge that this is the appropriate course of action is because it is not possible to make that determination after only doing a physical examination (even if combined with other variables such as the woman’s age and family history).

Perhaps some 80% of breast associated changes are from benign causes. Additional, most new breast cancer cases occur in women who are older than fifty. It is thus not surprising that some physicians will conclude that a lump found in the breast, especially with a younger patient, as being only a cyst and not due to breast cancer. The odds are in favor of such a diagnosis.

Unfortunately, there is more to the matter. If breast cancer is detected before it can reach a late stage (for example, stage 0, stage I or stage II), the five-year survival rate is generally over eighty percent. The five-year survival rate is a statistical measure used by cancer specialists to identify the fraction of patients who survive the disease for beyond five years following detection. Thus, a five-year survival rate above 80% means that, statistically, more than eighty out of every one hundred patients with a less advanced stage breast cancer will, with proper treatment, survive the disease for at least five years following detection.

Should cancer of the breast not be found until it reaches stage III (typically regarding larger cancerous masses in the breast or a spread of the cancer to lymph nodes), the five-year survival rate falls to roughly 54%. With regard to stage IV (usually associated with a cancerous mass that is bigger that 5 cm or the spread of the cancer to the bone or distant organs, such as the lungs), the five-year survival rate is roughly 20%.

It is predicted that one in eight women will have breast cancer at some point in their lifetime. It is the 2nd most often diagnosed cancer in women. More than one hundred ninety thousand females are expected to be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer this year. Furthermore more than forty nine thousand women are expected to pass away of breast cancer this year. Given that women whose breast cancer is detected and treated in the early stages have a better than eighty percent expectation of surviving the cancer for more than 5 years after diagnosis, a question that follows is what percentage of those forty thousand or more women who will die of this disease this year would otherwise survive if their cancer had been no delay in diagnosing their cancer.

By conducting a clinical breast examination a physician just cannot accurately differentiate between a benign cyst and a cancerous growth. For this reason a physician ought to normally advocate that diagnostic testing be ordered instantly if a lump is found in a woman's breast. Examples of diagnostic tests can include an imaging study such as a mammogram or an ultrasound, or a sampling, such as by biopsy or aspiration. Each test has the potential for a false negative thus it may be important to perform more than one test before cancer can be eliminated as the cause of the lump.

If a doctor concludes that a mass in a woman's breast as only a benign fibroid cyst based only on a clinical breast examination, that physician places the patient in danger of not knowing she has breast cancer until it progresses to an advanced, perhaps incurable, stage. The failure to conduct appropriate diagnostic testing, like an imaging study such as a mammogram or ultrasound, or a sampling, such as a biopsy or aspiration, may amount to a departure from the accepted standard of medical care and might result in a malpractice case.