Physicians Told To Pay $12,000,000 By Jury In Lawsuit About Breast Cancer Delayed Diagnosis
The mammogram is an important tool available to physicians to detect a woman's
breast cancer while it is the early stages, thereby saving the lives of these patients. Still, the mammogram is only as effective as the physician who interprets it. If a mistake is made in reading a mammogram it might delay the diagnosis of the woman's cancer. This holdup might be enough time for the cancer to metastasize, reducing the likelihood that she will be able to save the breast or outlive the cancer.
Consider the published matter of a woman who had a routine mammogram and was told that there was no evidence of cancer. Roughly 2 years later, the woman underwent another mammogram. This time the mammogram was interpreted as showing no change to the dilated duct from the earlier mammogram. Yet, the previous mammogram had not revealed a dilated duct and so the doctors did nothing to study the suspicious change from the earlier, clear, mammogram. Her mammogram was misinterpreted and her cancer was not detected.
When the woman went in for another mammogram at another hospital the following year, the doctor interpreting the mammogram documented several small nodular densities. The physician documented that these had not changed from the prior mammograms. Yet, both of the previous mammograms included no evidence of nodular densities. Again, her mammogram was misinterpreted and again her cancer was not found.
When the patient was at last diagnosed at a subsequent date, the woman had advanced breast cancer that had metastasized. The main tumor was in the same position where the prior mammogram had been interpeted as showing a dilated duct. She filed a lawsuit against both doctors and hospitals.
The physician and hospital that interpreted the third mammogram as suggesting small nodular densities payed out an undisclosed sum in an amount less that the $2.0 million available in insurance coverage. The doctor and hospital that incorrectly interpreted the prior mammogram would not settle for the full amount of the policy, offering only $125,000. The case proceeded to trial where evidence was offered that had the mammogram not been misread the cancer might have been found while still a Stage 1 cancer, which usually has a 5 year survival rate higher than ninety percent. The law firm that handled the claim reported that the jury returned a verdict of $12,000,000.
This is a good case to examine for various reasons. First, two independent mammograms were misread by two distinct doctors at two different hospitals. Also the two doctors attributed results to previous mammograms which were not present in those earlier mammograms. It is hard to figure out how this might have happened unless the physicians each compared the mammogram they were examining to a different patients mammogram. But the likelihood of this occurring twice at 2 separate hospitals is highly improbable. However the degree of negligence that would be required otherwise is genuinely unexcusable. In this case, the jury seems to have agreed.
by: Joseph Hernandez
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Physicians Told To Pay $12,000,000 By Jury In Lawsuit About Breast Cancer Delayed Diagnosis