Each year thousands of Americans suffer unnecessary pain, injuries, and even death from cancer misdiagnosis or delays in diagnosing cancer. Failure to diagnose a cancer, allows the cancer to spread throughout the body until the damage is so severe, nothing can be done to save the patient.
Cancer is the uncontrollable growth of abnormal cells and can occur anywhere in the body. Cancer is not a single disease; it's a multitude of different types of problems involving different organ systems, so there is different statistics for different types of cancers.
Some types of cancers do not benefit greatly from early detection and treatment, such as certain types of pancreatic cancer, brain cancer, and small cell cancer. However, many types of cancers do benefit greatly from early detection and treatment. Treatable cancers include breast cancer, colon cancer, lung cancer, and non small cell cancer. No matter which type of cancer a patient has or where the cancer is located, the sooner the cancer is detected and treated, the better the patient's chances for survival.
When it comes to medical negligence or medical malpractice cases involving cancer, there are a number of factors involved in determining whether the misdiagnosis of the cancer or failure to detect the cancer resulted in serious injuries to the patient or not. If the doctor failed to detect and treat the cancer and this cancer was a type that would have benefited the patient from being detected and treated early, there may be grounds for medical negligence or medical malpractice.
cancer misdiagnosis or cancer diagnosis delays include:
Failure to investigate a patient's complaints to find out what is making them ill
Failure to identify the type of cancer
Failure to correctly identify a tumor or skin lesion as malignant
Failure to properly screen patients for lifestyle behaviors associated with cancers
Failure to follow up with patients who do not respond to the treatment
Failure to send a patient to a specialist
If you believe you or someone you care about was not properly diagnosed for cancer or misdiagnosed, you may have grounds for a medical malpractice case. Contact an experienced medical malpractice attorney today. Dr. Bruce Fagel is a medical malpractice lawyer and a licensed medical doctor, so he understands exactly what it takes to pursue and win a case involving a delay in diagnosis or misdiagnosis of cancer.