Primary Care Physician And Urologist Fail To Diagnose Man's Cancer For 5 Years

Prostate cancer is a dreadful disease. Even if not perfect doctors use diagnostics tests to doctors to identify whether the cancer is present in a patient. Still given the likelihood of false negatives (a negative test outcome while the patient in reality has cancer) physicians must follow up and redo tests as appropriate if patient complaints and screening tests keep showing the possibility of cancer. The failure to do so may leave the physician liable for malpractice.

In one published claim a man told his primary care physician that he was suffering from urinary frequency and burning. The doctor began the patient on antibiotics and refered him to a urologist. The urologist did a cystoscopy which showed that the patient had an enlarged prostate. The urologist additionally took a PSA blood test which came back a 16.3 (a level higher than a 4.0 is ordinarily regarded as high). Because of this the urologist did a biopsy two months later. The biopsy was read by a pathologist as displaying no evidence of cancer.

The next year the patient went back to the urologist. This time the PSA came back a 2.9 (typically considered to be in normal range). The urologist concluded that the patient had BPH (a noncancerous enlargement of the prostate). Three months later the man saw the PCP for fever and nocturia (needing to urinate during the night). The doctor put him on a second round of antibiotics. A follow up urine culture came back negative. The primary care physician hence referred him back to the urologist. The urologist ordered a PSA test which came back a 6.4 (again, high).

A biopsy examines samples of the prostate. So, a biopsy can not catch the cancer. At this point, the urologist chose to depend on the preceding years biopsy and to not perform another one as a follow up. Rather, the urologist failed to follow up on the male's complaints and elevated PSA.

The subsequent year the individual returned to his family doctor. His symptoms including nocturia persisted. On physical examination the doctor noted that the individual had a highly enlarged prostate. Nevertheless, the doctor did not order a PSA or re-refer the individual to a urologist. Routine blood testing 4 months afterwards showed that the male patient's PSA was at 7.4 Neither physician followed up in any way.

One more year goes by at which time the family doctor documented that the PSA level was 9.8 Once more, no follow up or referral to a urologist. Still an additional year and the patient is still complaining about nocturia. Now the PSA was 9.7 No follow up and no referral. Five years after the mans first claims of urinary problems the primary care physician again recorded a significantly enlarged prostate gland and a PSA that had now risen to 31. The doctor finally refered the individual back to the urologist.

The urologist verified that the patients prostate was enlarged and placed the man on 2 weeksafter which he would do an additional PSA blood test. When the PSA test was done 2 weeks later it registered a 33. A biopsy was then at last done which revealed cancer every sample taken.

Testing eventually uncovered that the patient had prostate cancer which had spread to the lymph nodes, the liver and the bone. Even after a course of both hormone therapy and radiation therapy the individual died roughly eighteen months following his diagnosis. The law firm that handled this matter recorded that the case settled for $1,000,000.

by: Joseph Hernandez

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