Doctor Pays $1.25 Million When Patient Dies After Multi Year Delay In Detection Of Colon Cancer

In some cases colon cancers bleed. Under some circumstances, the blood may be visible in the stool. IN those circumstances in which the cancer is in the vicinity of the rectum, the blood could even surface as bright red. Even though the blood is not visible, it might nevertheless be possible to determine that the patient is bleeding in other ways. For example, the loss of blood may show up as anemia. Blood tests may disclose internal loss of blood that may be the result of a tumor in the colon. The main blood test results to check are the hemoglobin, hematocrit, and Mean Corpuscular Volume (MCV) levels. Low levels may indicate blood loss and iron deficiency anemia. When an inidividual has levels that are low for these tests doctors commonly agree that there should be additional testing to determine the cause of the blood loss, such as the prospect of cancer of the colon.

Look at the case of a 64 year old male patient whose blood tests showed all of the above. The next year, the patient's blood work found a worsening of the man's problem. Also, the man's stools were discovered to be positive for blood. Without any further testing, the person's physician entered a diagnosis of hemorrhoids into the patient's record. 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 normally thought to be high and troubling for prostate cancer). The physician did not put any report in the man's record to indicate an having examined the gland. The doctor did not tell the patient about the high PSA levels and did not refer the individual to a specialist.

Roughly two years later the individual was seen by a different physician. Given the person's age this doctor had him undergo a barium enema. The result: a diagnosis of advanced colon cancer. The individual passed away from the spread of the cancer within 3 years subsequent to his diagnosis. The person's family pursued a case against the doctor who ignored the patient's abnormally low blood test results and overlooked the presence of blood in the man's stool. The law firm that handled the lawsuit reported a settlement in the amount of $1,250,000

Blood tests are done for a reason. Abnormal test outcomes are indicators that there might be something wrong, maybe dangerously wrong with the individual and call for follow up. Sometimes follow up means repeating the blood test within a short period of time to find out whether the levels improve. However, if the levels are sufficiently above or below normal levels or keep getting worse, doctors commonly acknowledge that this raises the need to order appropriate other tests to find out the reason behind those levels. Physicians further normally agree that blood in the stool of an adult individual requires immediate attention to rule out cancer of the colon as the cause. A colonoscopy is usually used to examine the whole colon and either locate or rule out the presence of any tumors. This physician failed to dor any of this.

Although the majority of cases that settle do so without any admission of liability by defendants it makes sense that the law firm that handled this case was able to report such a significant settlement.

by: Joseph Hernandez

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