Imagine Being Diagnosed With Colon Cancer Metastasis After A Doctor Assured Otherwise

Even the idea that one might have colon cancer tends to raise dread in the majority of people

. It can hence feel very reassuring to have your doctor tell you that you simply have hemorrhoids. That there is no need to be concerned about the blood in your stool. However this reassurance should only come after the physician has eliminated the chance of colon cancer (and other possibly dangerous gastrointestinal problems). Else, you might not learn that you have colon cancer before it is too late. Should a doctor decide without testing considers that claims of blood in the stool or rectal bleeding by a patient are from hemorrhoids and it eventually turns out to be colon cancer, that physician might have committed medical malpractice. Under those circumstances, the patient might have a legal claim against that doctor.

Mere than 10 million men and women have hemorrhoids and another million new incidents of hemorrhoids will probably arise this year as opposed to a little more than the 100 thousand new incidents of colon cancer that will be diagnosed. Further, colon cancers do not always. If they do, the bleeding might be intermittent. And depending on where the cancer is in the colon, the blood may not even be seen in the stool. Possibly it is simply because of the difference in the quantity of instances being identified that some physicians just think that blood in the stool or rectal bleeding is because of hemorrhoids. This is playing the odds. A doctor making this diagnosis will be right greater than 90% of the time. It appears realistic, right? The concern, however, is that if the doctor is wrong in this diagnosis, the patient might not discover he or she has colon cancer until it has developed to an advanced stage, perhaps even to the point where treatment is no longer effective.

This is why physicians frequently recommend that a colonoscopy ought to be done right away if someone has blood in the stool or rectal bleeding. A colonoscopy is a procedure that uses a flexible tube with a camera on the end is employed to see the interior of the colon. If growths (polyps or tumors) are discovered, they can be taken out (if small enough) or sampled and checked for the presence of cancer (by biopsy). Providing no cancer is found from the colonoscopy may colon cancer be ruled out as a cause of the blood.

But, if the cancer is diagnosed after it has spread outside of the colon and has reached the lymph nodes, the person's 5 year survival rate will normally be roughly 53%. Aside from surgery to take out the tumor and surrounding portions of the colon treatment for this stage of colon cancer requires chemotherapy in an attempt to eliminate any cancer that might be left in the body. By the time the cancer spreads to distant organs for example the liver, lungs, or brain, the person's five year survival rate is cut down to roughly 8%. Now treatment may entail surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and other medications. Treatment might no longer be helpful once the cancer is this advanced. If treatment stops being effective, colon cancer is fatal. This year, about 48,000 individuals will pass away in the U.S. from advanced colon cancer.

As a result of diagnosing complaints of blood in the stool or rectal bleeding as caused by hemorrhoids without performing the appropriate tests to rule out colon cancer, a physician puts the patient at risk of not learning he or she has colon cancer until it progresses to an advanced, possibly no longer treatable, stage. This might amount to a departure from the accepted standard of medical care and may lead to a malpractice lawsuit.

If you or a a member of your family were told by a physician that blood in the stool or rectal bleeding were a result of only hemorrhoids, and were subsequently diagnosed with advanced colon cancer, you need to consult a lawyer at once. This article is for basic educational purposes only and does not constitute legal (or medical) advice. If you have any medical problems you should consult with a doctor. You should not act, or refrain from acting, based upon any information in this article but should rather seek professional legal counsel. A competent attorney who is experienced in medical malpractice might be able to help you determine if you have a claim for a delay in the diagnosis of the colon cancer. Immediately contact an attorney are there is a time limit in cases such as these.

by: Joseph Hernandez

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