Ways In Which Malpractice Case May Arise Out Of Delayed Diagnosis Of Colon Cancer

Even the thought that one might have colon cancer tends to bring up worry in nearly all of us

. It can hence feel very reassuring to hear your physician say that you only have hemorrhoids and there is no need to worry about the blood in your stool. However this reassurance ought to not be given until the physician has ruled out the likelihood of colon cancer (and other possibly dangerous gastrointestinal problems). Otherwise, you might not learn that you have colon cancer before it is too late. If a physician automatically assumes that claims of blood in the stool or rectal bleeding by a patient are the result of hemorrhoids and it later is discovered that the patient had colon cancer all along, that physician might not have met the standard of care and the patient might be able to pursue a lawsuit against that doctor.

It is generally thought that there are currently at least 10 million people with hemorrhoids. An additional 1,000,000 new instances of hemorrhoids will likely arise this year. In contrast, a little more than the 100 thousand new cases of colon cancer that will be diagnosed . In addition, not all colon cancers bleed. In the event that they do, the bleeding may be intermittent. And based on where the cancer is in the colon, the blood may not even be apparent in the stool. Perhaps it is simply as a result of the difference in the volume of instances being identified that a number of physicians just think that the existence of blood in the stool or rectal bleeding is from hemorrhoids. This amounts to gambling, pure and simple. A doctor who reaches this conclusion will be right greater than ninety percent of the time. It appears sensible, doesnt it? The difficulty, though, is that if the doctor is inaccurate in this diagnosis, the patient may not learn he or she has colon cancer until it has progressed to an advanced stage, perhaps to where treatment is no longer effective.

For this reason doctors frequently advise that a colonoscopy should be done immediately if someone has blood in the stool or rectal bleeding. A colonoscopy is a procedure whereby a flexible scope with a camera on the end is used to examine the inside of the colon. In the event that something is discovered in the course of the procedure, it might be possible to remove it right away should it not be very big. In any case, it will get a biopsy to check for cancer. Providing no cancer is found during the colonoscopy can colon cancer be ruled out as a source of the blood.

By diagnosing complaints of blood in the stool or rectal bleeding as resulting from hemorrhoids without performing the proper tests to eliminate the possibility of colon cancer, a doctor places the patient at risk of not finding out that the patient colon cancer before it reaches an advanced, possibly no longer treatable, stage. This might constitute a departure from the accepted standard of medical care and may result in a malpractice lawsuit.

by: Joseph Hernandez

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