Physician Sued For Malpractice By Couple For Three Year Delay In Detecting Cancer In Man's Prostate

Nearly all individuals assume that the sole concern associated with a medical malpractice claim

, like one regarding a delayed cancer diagnosis, is whether the doctor erred. But this is merely one factor that an attorney must address when analyzing a potential case. There are 2 other factors that attorneys consider. First, did the doctor's mistake cause harm to the patient. Second, is the harm enough that it makes sense economically to pursue a lawsuit.

The medical records typically uncover the information that was available to the physician, for example high PSA test results or abnormal findings on a physical examination of the prostate. These are the two tests that are commonly used to screen asymptomatic males for prostate cancer. Determining the delay that resulted from the doctor's malpractice is normally calculated by checking medical records for dates when the doctor either failed to follow the screening protocols or report abnormal test results, when the cancer likely started to grow, and when it was finally diagnosed.

What may be harder to establish is the extent of the harm to the plaintiff. Except if the PSA surpasses at least a 10.0 (a PSa reading above a 4.0 is thought to be high) or a bone scan reveals sign of metastasis, regardless of whether the cancer has a high Gleason score, the majority of doctors would acknowledge that it is impossible to establish the stage of the cancer without doing surgery. Studying the tissue gathered during the surgery determines if the cancer had already spread beyond the prostate. Despite a PSA above a 10.0 it is still feasible that the cancer is still contained and that surgery can take out the cancer.

In one documented lawsuit, a fifty two year old male had his PSA taken by his physician The PSA level was 2.0 at that time. This level is generally deemed to be normal. The man's PSA level was retested by the same doctor 2 years after that. This time, though, the result indicated that his PSA level had reached a 4.2. This was marked as high in the report provided by the lab that conducted the blood analysis. The man went to this physician four additional times in the two and a half years which followed. His doctor failed to tell him that the PSA level had been elevated and failed to do additional PSA testing in that period. The patient next had his PSA tested by the same doctor 3 years after that abnormal reading. At this point the results indicated a PSA level of 5.25. It had risen.

It was only at this point that the doctor advised the patient about the prior high level. Once these results came in, the doctor sent the patient to a urologist. A biopsy showed that the patient had cancer. During surgery his doctors discovered that the cancer had already spread to the seminal vesicles and there was also vascular as well as perineal invasion. Given that the cancer had already began growing outsid the prostate, the surgery was not curative. The man therefore started hormone therapy. His PSA levels then started to go up post-operatively. This suggests a poor prognosis so that it is unlikely that the patient will live 5 years past the surgery.

The law firm that handled this case published that the malpractice claim on behalf of the man and his wife was settled for $550,000. The man was sixty when the matter settled The settlement agreement left the chance of a wrongful death claim if the man does not live to the pertinent statute of limitations.

As this case demonstrates, the nature of the harm to the man was not known until the results of the surgery were examined and showed that the cancer hadreached areas outside the prostate. Furthermore it was not until the patient's PSA levels began to go up after the surgery that the true extent of the injury could be determined. At that point the attorney was in a position to be able to completely evaluate the patient's claim. Notice that the law firm in this case limited the settlement only to the patient's medical malpractice claim. This was especially important given the man's poor prognosis. Obviously if there will later be a wrongful death lawsuit that might be pursued is determined by several issues including whether the patient will pass away due to the cancer or of some other cause and if this happens during the time frame allowed by the relevant statute of limitations and statute of repose.

Physician Sued For Malpractice By Couple For Three Year Delay In Detecting Cancer In Man's Prostate

By: J. Hernandez

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