subject: Diagnosed With Metastatic Colon Cancer? Was The Delay Caused By Your Doctor? [print this page] One of the varieties of cases handled by a cancer lawyer are those that deal with colon cancer. One of the issues that most commonly arises is on account of a doctor having told a person that the blood they noticed in their stool was from hemorrhoids when in fact the patient actually has colon cancer. What makes this happen and what alternatives does the person and his or her family have when it does?
The first thing to note is that most physicians acknowledge that if a person complains of rectal bleeding or blood in the stool a colonoscopy ought to be performed so as to establish the source of the blood. The colonoscopy helps establish whether the blood is due to colon cancer or something different such as hemorrhoids. But merely assuming that the blood is the result of hemorrhoids risks a delay in diagnosing a cancer.
Colon cancer is a disease that progresses over time. As it advances it gets more difficult to treat successfully. For instance, when the disease is in stage 1 or stage 2, it is still contained inside the wall of the colon. Treatment for these stages normally involves surgery to take out the tumor and surrounding parts of the colon. Chemotherapy is often not part of the treatment of stage 1 and stage 2 unless it might be given to a person who is young as a preventative measure. With surgery, the individual with stage 1 or stage 2 has a good chance of still being alive at least five years after diagnosis. The relative 5-year survival rate is over ninety percent for stage I and seventy three percent for stage II.
By the time the cancer progresses to stage 3, it has spread outside the colon. At this stage treatment calls for both surgery and chemotherapy (perhaps with other medications as well). The relative 5-year survival rate for stage 3 is 53%. If it gets to stage 4, the relative 5-year survival rate is lowered to approximately 8%. Treatments such as surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and other medications may or may not still be effective. Once treatment is no longer effective, the disease becomes fatal. Approximately forty eight thousand men and women will die from colon cancer this year alone.
If the individual with rectal bleeding gets a colonoscopy and the tumor is found prior to spreading to the lymph nodes or to other organs, it can often be taken out during the procedure if it is sufficiently small or by surgically extracting the section of the colon containing the tumor. Thus the additional time before diagnosis and treatment may be sufficient to allow the cancer to reach an advanced stage. When this is the case, the patient will need to undergo additional treatments and will have a greatly lowered likelihood of living for at least five years beyond diagnosis. Subject to the laws of the jurisdiction in which the doctor caused the delay, this may give rise to a case for medical malpractice, or in the most severe case, for wrongful death.
by: Joseph Hernandez
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