Examples Of Lawsuits Of Delayed Cancer Of The Prostate Diagnosis

Imagine finding out that you have prostate cancer. That’s hard because “cancer” is a word that engenders fear of pain, fear of the treatment, and fear of death. However maybe, you tell yourself, possibly it is not that bad. Maybe we diagnosed it early and with proper treatment I’ll beat it.

But it gets worse. Envision then discovering that is too late for that. The cancer is alreaddy outside the prostate and has reached other areas of your body. A cure is thus no longer a possibility. Treatment will at most slow down the disease. And later, after that treatment no longer works, treatment that will lessen the pain from the ever growing cancer.

Perhaps you ask yourself, “Why me?” “Was it just bad luck?” And then you may ask “Was there any way this could have been avoided?” “Was there anything I could have changed that would have avoided what now is an incurable disease?”

And then the news gets still worse. Imagine at this point discovering that your doctor in whom you placed your faith to maintain you healthy and to alert you of any possible health problems, had information that you were at risk of having prostate cancer. Envision discovering that your physician had this information for at least a year prior to when you learned you had cancer. And picture finding out that had your doctor had informed you when the data was first available your cancer could have been diagnosed while it was still contained within the prostate gland and could have been cured, could have been eliminated with proper treatment.

Do you think this will never happen ? Then consider the matters below:

Case:

For a three year time frame an internist did not inform his patient that blood tests revealed that the individual's PSA level was not only raised it was also rising. When the physician at last advised the individual about the abnormal test results the result was a diagnosis of metastatic prostate cancer. The only options offered for treatment at that point were radiation therapy and hormone therapy - applied in an attempt to slow the cancer’s growth and spread.

Case:

Not only did the doctor in this case not tell his patient his PSA level had been abnormal and rising, the doctor actually told him that the test results were normal. The patient found out he had prostate cancer because he went to a urologist at the urging of a family member. The diagnosis - prostate cancer that had spread to the seminal vesicles.

Case:

A family doctor conducted a physical examination of the patient's prostate and noticed that his prostate gland had a hardened region. The doctor did not inform the man. The doctor failed to refer the man to a urologist . The doctor also did not order a biopsy to discover if the hardened area was cancerous or benign. When the patient eventually discovered the cancer it had already metastasized to other parts of his body.

Case:

The patient has high PSA levels for over 2 years. Yet, his doctor did not let him know during that entire time. At the time the man was ultimately told he had prostate cancer he tried surgery in the hopes that the cancer was still confined to the prostate gland and that surgery could eliminate the cancer. He also went through months of hormonal therapy. And then post-surgical PSA levels verified that the surgery did not eliminate the cancer and that it is still present in his body.

Each of the matters discussed above led to a medical malpractice claim. The law firms that handled these cases documented being able to get compensation for the patients and their families in amounts that ranged from $400,000 to $1,500,000.

Far too many men end up in situations just like the preceding. Whether the physicians fail to look at the results of the tests, whether they take the position that there is no need to take action even though the PSA is high or a nodule of a certain size is detected in the prostate, or whether they just do not understand the guidelines and the standard of care for the action that is proper when screening results are abnormal, these physicians cause a delay that results in the growth and spread of the cancer.

Imagine being the patient who received that news. You fight the cancer as hard and as long as you could. What if you were his spouse, his child, his parent? You would help him fight the cancer and you offer him all the love and support you had to give.

Perhaps you would decide to bring a case for medical malpractice to help protect your family’s future. And you might hope that if compelled to deal with the mistake and to incur a cost for it, maybe, just maybe, the doctor will change how he or she treats other patients in the future so that this tragedy will never arise again.