Family Pursues $1.25 Million Case Claiming Man Passed Away Of Colon Cancer Because Of Doctor's Error

Colon cancers on occasion bleed. Occasionally, the blood might be visible in the stool. In cases where the cancer is close to the rectum, the blood might even surface as bright red. Regardless of whether the blood is not visible, it may nevertheless be possible to find out that the person is bleeding in other ways. For instance, the loss of blood may appear as anemia. Blood tests might disclose internal blood loss that might be the result of a tumor in the colon. Important blood test results to evaluate are the hemoglobin, hematocrit, and Mean Corpuscular Volume (MCV) levels. Low levels may mean blood loss and iron deficiency anemia. When a patient is found to have levels that are below normal levels for these tests physicians commonly concur that there ought to be additional testing to find out the explanation for the blood loss, including the chance of cancer of the colon.

Look at the matter of a sixty four year old male patient whose blood tests showed all of the above. The following year, the person's blood work revealed a worsening of the patient’s problem. In addition, the man’s stools were discovered to be positive for blood. Without any more testing or referring the man to a specialist the patient's doctor documented a diagnosis of hemorrhoids into the man’s chart. Furthermore, the man's PSA level (a test that is used to screen males for prostate cancer) was a 10.3 (a level above a 4.0 is generally regarded as high and worrisome for prostate cancer). The physician made no entry in the man’s record to document an having examined the prostate. The doctor did not tell the patient about the high PSA levels and failed to refer the person to a specialist.

Around two years after the person went to a different doctor. Due to the individual's age this physician ordered a barium enema. The result: a diagnosis of advanced colon cancer. The individual passed away from metastatic colon cancer within 3 years after his diagnosis. The person's family pursued a lawsuit against the doctor who ignored the patient’s abnormally low blood test results and ignored the existence of blood in the man’s stool. The law firm that handled the case was able to report that it settled for $1.25 million.

Blood tests are done for a reason. Abnormal test outcomes suggest that something may be wrong, maybe critically wrong with the individual and require follow up. At times follow up includes repeating the blood test in just a short period of time to determine whether the levels improve. But when the levels deviate enough from normal levels or keep getting worse, doctors typically recognize that this increases the importance of ordering proper other tests to determine the explanation for those levels. Physicians further normally concur that blood in the stool of an adult person mandates fast attention to rule out colon cancer as the reason. A colonoscopy is often ordered to look at the entire colon and either locate or exclude the existence of any tumors. This physician did none of this.

Despite the fact that most claims that settle do so without any admission of liability by defendants it is no surprise that the law firm that handled this case was able to report such a significant settlement.