subject: Did A Physician Explain To You That You Had A Benign Mass While You Had Breast Cancer [print this page] Female patients trust that their doctors will know the difference between a serious health issue and something that fails to pose any risk to their wellbeing. One area where is this especially true is with breast cancer. Female patients trust in physicians to do every appropriate tests to find any cancer that may be present as early as possible. The existence of a lump in a breast heightens worry immediately. And here is where the doctor can do the right thing or the wrong thing. Most doctors acknowledge that the right thing is to perform tests to establish if that lump is cancerous. The reason most physicians acknowledge that this is the right plan of action is because a physician cannot determine if the lump is cancerous or benign based only doing a physical examination (even when coupled with other variables like the woman's age and family history).
Roughly some eighty percent of breast related issues are not the result of breast cancer. Moreover, the majority of new breast cancer cases arise in women who are older than fifty. It is thus not surprising that certain physicians will conclude that an abnormal finding from a clinical breast examination, particularly in a woman who is not yet fifty, as due to a cyst and not from breast cancer. The odds are in favor of such a diagnosis.
However, this is not the end of the story. In case breast cancer is found before it can reach a late stage (for example, stage 0, stage I or stage II), the 5-year survival rate is usually at least eighty percent. The 5-year survival rate is a statistical measure that studies have demonstrated as projecting the percentage of patients who outlive the disease for a minimum five years subsequent to detection. Hencel insurance company, a five-year survival rate above 80% means that, statistically, more than eighty out of every one hundred patients with a less advanced stage breast cancer will, given appropriate treatment, survive the disease for at least five years following diagnosis.
In the event that breast cancer spreads before a diagnosis is made a woman's likelihood of outliving the cancer for mroe than 5 years is dramatically diminished. By the time the cancer gets to stage 3, the woman's chances are diminished to about fifty-four percent. If the cancer reaches stage 4, those odds fall to about twenty percent. So, eighty percent or higher with early detection compared to fifty-four percent or lower with late detection.
Approximately twelve percent of females will have breast cancer in their life time. This year alone, roughly 190,000 women will be newly diagnosed with breast cancer. Sadly, more than 40,000 women will die because of breast cancer. How many of these women would survive their breast cancer if their doctors had investigated the finding of a mass in the breast or an abnormal finding on a clinical breast exam and had diagnosed the breast cancer earlier, before it spread or metastasized?
By performing a clinical breast examination a doctor simply cannot correctly differentiate between a benign cyst and a cancerous growth. Given this a doctor should generally recommend that diagnostic testing be done instantly if a lump is found in a woman's breast. Examples of diagnostic tests can include an imaging study such as a mammogram or an ultrasound, or a sampling, such as by biopsy or aspiration. Each can fail to diagnose a cancer thus it may be necessary to do more than one test before breast cancer can be ruled out.
If a doctor diagnoses a lump in the breast of a female patient as simply a benign cyst based only on a clinical breast examination, that doctor places the patient at risk of not finding out she has breast cancer until it progresses to an advanced, perhaps untreatable, stage. The failure to conduct appropriate diagnostic testing, like an imaging study such as a mammogram or ultrasound, or a sampling, such as a biopsy or aspiration, may constitute a departure from the accepted standard of medical care and may result in a malpractice claim.
Did A Physician Explain To You That You Had A Benign Mass While You Had Breast Cancer
By: J. Hernandez
welcome to Insurances.net (https://www.insurances.net)
